In a strange turn of events, it seems a prediction I made last year is actually coming to fruition. This, however, is bad news.
What was that prediction? I wrote a piece on Black Friday last year and I made an offhand joke that if the retail trend continues, stores will open so early that they won’t even need to close for Thanksgiving at all!
Well, here we are, Black Friday 2014: Consumapalooza ‘14, the Desperation of Retail America 2014, Degradation of Consumerism 2k14, whatever you want to call it.
And with it, the ever-exiting social media spectacle of “who’s opening when on Black Friday!” Let’s kick things off with a retail shakeup. This year, in another desperate plea for relevance, JCPenny has upped the ante for department store retailers by opening at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.
Now, I’m not trying to pick on JCPenny here. Everyone knows they’ve been picked on enough. But there is no logic to this “strategic competitive move” as consumer analysts call it. Joey Thomas, a JC Penny spokesperson, stated in an interview with Huffington Post that they are opening at 5 p.m. because they opened early last year for the first time and the “response from customers was overwhelmingly positive.”
Apparently, the response was SO positive that in January of this year, JC Penny decided to close 33 of its stores and lay off 2,000 employees. It looks like opening early on Thanksgiving for JC Penny wasn’t enough, but how could it ever be?
Does 4-5 hours of extra sales really make these companies millions? Enough to turn around their failing brands?
More retailers are jumping back to 6 p.m. for opening this Thanksgiving. This is back 2 hours from the 2013 norm of 8 p.m., which many consumers thought to be intrusive already. In a few years employees will have just enough time to grab a plate to go before heading into work at noon on Thanksgiving.
Carol Spieckerman, a retail consultant with NewMarketBuilders, sees this herd mentality. “I think 6 may be the new 8 just because every year there has to be something new,” she said. “It becomes an ‘Everybody’s doing it’ type of dynamic.”
Plus there are the anomalies. Radio Shack, that out of touch electronics store that is bleeding profits, is opening at 8 a.m. for some reason. K-Mart, not to be outdone, plans to open at 6 a.m., because they want you to have more time to choose not to shop at K-Mart, apparently.
This brings me to my point. Some companies see opening early on Black Friday as a competitive move, some sort of marketing strategy to bring in millions more in sales, a tactic to help their floundering profits — but it’s not. They are simply doing this because the environment is so ridiculously competitive that they have no other option. This can be attributed to a number of things, but mainly it’s the growth of online shopping.
And with that, the silver lining: Amazon. Amazon is always open, holiday or not. On top of that, the online stores of many retailers is becoming more popular each holiday season. Slowly, more and more consumers are shifting their purchases online. 20 or 30 years from now, this Black Friday ethics discussion will all seem irrelevant, since brick and mortar stores will be a primitive, unprofitable platform for retail. The future is online retail and with its emergence begins the creative destruction of big box retailers as we know it.
Until then, let’s keep supporting the companies who pick people over profits. Costco, Nordstrom, Patagonia, Dillard’s, TJ Maxx and Marshall’s are all stores choosing to stay closed this Thanksgiving. Let’s show them a little love with our wallets and maybe other retailers will finally see that it’s just not worth it. People over profits!
