BLUEFIELD, Va. — Holiday bargain hunters hit the stores early and often as “Black Friday,” shoppers jammed area stores to take advantage of big savings in what some retail businesses consider to be critical to their bottom line.

“We had three officers up at the Walmart store (Friday) morning,” Bluefield, Va., Police Chief Harry Cundiff said. “The store was just taking some extra precautions to try to make sure everything went smooth. I think it was something (Walmart) did at all of their stores this morning. They just wanted some extra security.”

One holiday shopper who visited both the Bluefield, Va., Walmart and the Bluefield K-Mart stores early in the morning said the parking lots of both stores were packed, but there weren’t any lines to get into the stores. “The check-out lines were where long,” the shopper said. “The stores were crowded. People were waiting 45 minutes to an hour in the checkout lines.”

While hundreds of people stood in line at some area stores, a growing number of people were shopping online at New Graham Knives in the heart of downtown Bluefield, Va. “We have noticed an increase in our online orders over the last three weeks,” Michael Dye said. Dye is a Bluefield, Va., native, a pharmacist by trade and a successful businessman who owns New Graham Knives, New Graham Pharmacy and the Corner Stone Gift Shop.

“I think what we’re seeing is that people are spreading their purchases out over a longer period of time,” Dye said. “Our sales, in general, have been up. We have been blessed.” Dye said he would consider knives and collectibles to be “discretionary items,” but that hasn’t prevented online customers from shopping.

“We’re showing a substantial increase in our online orders at New Graham Knives,” Dye said. “We’re up 20 percent in sales of knives and collectibles over last year. That seems to be contrary to what the press is reporting.”

Dye is proud of how the online knife and collectible business has grown into a “Mecca,” of sorts, in the national and international community of knife collectors. “I bet we’ve had people from every state visit our little store here,” Dye said. “We have customers from both Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan, from Northern Virginia, the Eastern Shore and from Beckley, Charleston and Huntington, W.Va.

“A lot of our online customers like to come here and visit the store, take their time and look at everything we have in stock,” Dye said. “They can spend as much as three or four hours in here just looking at everything. It tickles me that something like this little store will bring people to our small town. We’re a destination for many knife collectors.”

Cundiff said the morning rush was uneventful. Other law enforcement officers in southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia reported a quiet morning in spite of heavy traffic near the entrances to local shopping malls.

— Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com