((Automated translation by Reuters, please see disclaimer https://bit.ly/rtrsauto))
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Target's Exclusive Swift Products Attract Early Black Friday Shoppers
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Swift's Eras Tour book and album boost Target sales
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Target will offer Swift's products online starting Saturday
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In some stores, customers queued before 5 a.m.
(Added comments from Los Angeles shoppers and photos from the Target store) by Siddharth Cavale and Ananya Mariam Rajesh
November 29 –
Young Taylor Swift fans and their parents lined up outside some of Target's nearly 2,000 stores in the United States early on the morning of Black Friday to purchase copies of her new book Eras Tour and her vinyl album.
Hoping to end a long period of slowing sales at Target stores – with cash-strapped customers shopping at competing retailers – the big box store chain teamed up with Swift to pull part of the momentum of the singer's fans after the concerts of her Eras Tour.
Several customers lined up outside Target stores as early as 5 a.m. in freezing temperatures, most of them there to purchase items from Swift.
“Yeah, it's really cold, but we're here to buy Taylor Swift's tour book and her latest vinyl,” said Carlos Miracle, a 31-year-old Swift fan, while waiting outside a store from Chicago.
Parents of teenage girls and twenty-somethings were willing to buy Swift's Eras Tour book for $39.99 at Target. The distributor also offers a vinyl and CD version of “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology”, containing 35 tracks including four bonus acoustic songs.
The vinyl version sells for $59.99 and the CDs for $17.99, according to Target's website.
In Los Angeles, Landon McCall, a 31-year-old accountant, said: 'I originally came for the vinyl, and I saw the book there too'
A Target store employee told him, “Hey, this is going to go fast. This is what everyone wants. I already sold 30 this morning in the first 30 minutes,” Mr. McCall said. “So I figured I'd better get both… My daughter also loves Taylor Swift, so I thought it would be something for her and her mom to go through the book and watch it together ”
Swift, 34, set milestones in the music industry and boosted local economies with her The Eras Tour, the latest leg of which is currently in Canada, a phenomenon some economists have dubbed “Swiftflation.”
Swift released her latest album Tortured Poets in May during Target's first quarter, boosting sales in its entertainment category by a single-digit percentage.
On Friday, Julia Corrin, a 39-year-old Pittsburgh resident, purchased the book Era Tour. The tour was a “really special time…and it will be great to have something to remember it by,” she said.
In New Jersey, Amy Webb, 28, was waiting in line to get her hands on the new Eras Tour book. “I don't usually buy anything around the holidays, but I wanted to get my hands on this book before it sold out,” she said.
On and that the Tortured Poets vinyl was gone by 9:30.
To boost sales during the holiday season, which is shorter than previous years with just 26 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Target will offer Eras Tour items on its app and website starting Saturday.
“That's the only reason I'm here, we don't want to go online and see it's sold (out),” said 35-year-old Marriott hotel worker Adrian Antuna, who was waiting to get his hands on the Eras Tour book and a few vinyl albums.
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