By Siddharth Cavale and Ananya Mariam Rajesh
(Reuters) CHICAGO/NEW YORK/NORTH BERGEN, N.J. -Taylor Swift fans and their parents lined up outside some of Target’s nearly 2,000 U.S. stores early on Black Friday to buy copies of her new Eras Tour book.
Hoping to buck a long stretch of slowing sales at Target stores – with penny-pinched shoppers making purchases at rival retailers – the big-box chain teamed up with Swift to build on the fan momentum she experienced following her Eras Tour concerts.
Several customers queued up outside Target stores as early as 5 a.m. ET in freezing temperatures, with most of them there to snap up Swift merchandise.
“Yeah, it’s really cold but we’re here to get Taylor Swift’s tour book and her latest vinyl drop,” Carlos Miracle, a 31-year old Swift fan, said while waiting outside a Chicago store.
Parents of teenage daughters and youngsters in their late 20’s were up and about to buy Swift’s Eras Tour book priced at $39.99 at Target. The retailer is also making available a vinyl album and CD version of “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” for the first time containing 35 tracks including four acoustic bonus songs.
The vinyl version is being sold at $59.99 and CDs for $17.99, according to Target’s website.
Swift, 34, has been setting music industry milestones and boosting local economies with The Eras Tour, with the last leg of the concert happening in Canada currently, a phenomenon that some economists have termed “Swiftflation.”
Swift had released her latest Tortured Poets album in May during Target’s first quarter, boosting its sales in its entertainment category by a high-single-digit percentage.
On Friday, Julia Corrin, a 39-year old from Pittsburgh bought the Era Tour book. The tour was a “really special moment … and it’ll be great to have something to remember it by,” she said.
In New Jersey, 28-year old Amy Webb was in line to get her hands on the new Eras Tour book. “I usually don’t buy anything during the holiday season, but wanted to get my hands on this before it sells out,” she said.
On X, formerly known as Twitter, users shared images of long queues to grab Swift’s merchandise while some noted that a few Target stores saw nearly empty shelves for the Eras Tour book and were out of Tortured Poets vinyl as of 9:30 a.m.
“The vinyl went quick, I don’t know exactly how many my store got, but I was in line at 5. By the time it was my turn the employee told me there were only 8 left,” said an X-user Rachel.
There were no fans in line as of 8:30 a.m. at one Target store in New Jersey that had opened two and a half hours earlier. Its rack holding copies of the Eras Tour book was half empty.
To boost sales during the holiday season, which is shorter than in previous years with only 26 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Target will begin to offer the Eras Tour book and vinyl and CD version of her Tortured Poets album on its app and website beginning Saturday.
“That’s the only reason I am here, we don’t want to go online and see that it is sold (out),” said a 35-year old Marriott Hotel employee Adrian Antuna, who was waiting to get his hands on the Eras Tour book and a couple of the Tortured Poets Department vinyl albums.
(Reporting by Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru and Siddharth Cavale in New Jersey, with contributions from Justin Nathanson and Kyoko Gasha in New York and Eric Cox in Chicago. Editing by Nick Zieminski)
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