The reason for the season isn’t maximize profit for retailers
WHAT HEELS: Retailers wanting first crack at the wallets of cash-strapped consumers are moving Black Friday – the traditional kickoff to the Christmas shopping season – to Thanksgiving Day. Target, Macy’s, Best Buy and Kohl’s are amongst the retailers that will open their doors to bargain hunters at midnight on Thanksgiving – at which point, Wal-Mart will have already been open for two hours. It’s giving some shoppers agita (or, heartburn, for non-NYers), The New York Times reports:
[J]udging from the negative reaction among dedicated Friday after Thanksgiving shoppers on blogs, Twitter and Facebook, the wave of midnight openings this year has crossed a line.
Part of the objection is inconvenience. To be at or near the front of the line, shoppers say they will now have to leave home hours earlier – in the middle of the turkey dinner for some. But the wider objections reflect sentiments like those of the Occupy Wall Street movement, including a growing attention to the rights of workers and a wariness of decisions by big business.
Either way, many in the shop-till-you-drop crowd have had enough with Black Friday creep.
“I just don’t think that’s good business, in a sense, to make your employees come in on one of the biggest holidays of the year and cut their family time short,” said Ms. Nyberg, 31, a saleswoman in Villa Rica, Ga., for a molecular biology company. “With the economy the way it is, no one’s going to say, ‘I’m not going to do that, I’m going to quit or get fired over it.’ ”
One retail executive sounded sad about the decision to open earlier. Brian Dunn, the chief executive of Best Buy, said that the midnight opening “became an operating imperative for us” after competitors moved their openings back. “I feel terrible,” he said.
A handful of retailers are holding out, like J. C. Penney, which will open at its usual 4 a.m. on Friday. “We wanted to give our associates Thanksgiving Day to spend with their families,” said Bill Gentner, senior vice president for marketing.
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