Black Friday shoppers take over Castleton Square Mall

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Christmas shopping season started early Friday morning with Black Friday shoppers at Castleton Square Mall and other malls across the country.

Security will patrol Castleton Square Mall and other Simon Property Group locations on Friday to ensure shoppers feel safe, according to Danielle Parker, Simon’s area director of marketing and business development.

Kyle Cattani, a professor of operations management at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, describes the holiday shopping season as being, “feast or famine.”

Cattani says the pandemic’s effect on supply chains may make it hard to find certain items on your list.

“My advice is to be flexible and opportunistic,” Cattani said. “There will be shortages of many products, but there are also now warehouses of other products that are going to go on sale.”

This weekend is expected to be record-breaking for shoppers. The National Retail Federation estimates that 166.3 million people started shopping on Thanksgiving and will continue through Cyber Monday.