While Black Friday is still a few days away, people have already began to flood the stores looking for the best deals and that includes stores at the Millcreek Mall.

The Millcreek Mall was bustling on Monday morning as people began their holiday shopping, but it's not just Erie residents who come to the mall for great deals.
Belynda D'Andrea, the manager of GracyLane explained, "We are seeing a lot of out-of-towners, people from Western New York and then outside of Erie, down to Pittsburgh, we are starting to see some Canadian buses and of course, our local Erie shoppers."


Joe Bell, the Spokesperson for the Millcreek Mall said the location of the shopping center is what draws people in. "It's right there in the confluence of northwest Pennsylvania, southwest New York, northeast Ohio, and not too far from Ontario. So you have all these geographic areas and lots of good access via highways. So people are naturally going to be attracted to a large shopping center like that", explained Bell.


It's not just Pennsylvania license plates that are filling the parking lots at the Millcreek Mall. According to Bell,  license plates are found from people traveling from out of state as well as Canada this time of year.


Local business owners agree, they have customers from all over the region which leads to more business for their other locations.
Randy Graham, the President and wine maker at Courtyard Winery in North East said, "A few people stopping here that are from Canada, we get quite a few people from Ohio and so it's a nice outreach for our area in North East and our wine country there that we can talk about what we have in this area to offer."


Bell said the number of people who visits the mall continues to grows year to year, "In the past twelve months, we've seen over twelve million visitors come to the complex and that all ramps up around this time of year."

Graham said they will have their pop up location at the mall until December 31 and over the past six years since they have had a location here, they have seen a mix of returning customer and new customers.