Shopping Central at MyAJC.com
Join the AJC’s Bargain Hunter, Nedra Rhone, for live coverage of the shopping scene on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. From parking lots and traffic to deals and steals, she’ll have all the info you need to make sure you have a successful #BlackFridayATL.
OPEN ON THANKSGIVING
Opening times for the stores in a retail chain may vary depending on the store’s location. For specific information, call the store directly. Here are the opening hours on Thanksgiving for major retailers:
Belk: 8 p.m.
Best Buy: 6 p.m.
BrandsMart USA: 6 p.m.
H.H. Gregg: 8 p.m.
J.C. Penney: 8 p.m.
Kmart: 6 a.m.
Kohl’s: 8 p.m.
Macy’s: 8 p.m.
Old Navy: 9 a.m.-4 p.m (some locations open at 7 p.m.)
Sears: 8 p.m.
Sports Authority: 6 p.m.
Target: 8 p.m.
Toys R Us: 5 p.m.
Wal-Mart: 6 p.m. (doorbusters begin)
This year, after eating Thanksgiving dinner, Caleb Hill and his wife will spread out the Black Friday ads in the newspaper and craft a plan for shopping. The goal? To buy gifts for the 24 people on their holiday shopping list before dawn on Friday.
Holiday creep — the gradual moving up of the holiday shopping season on the calendar — has redefined the way retailers do business, and in recent years, it has also changed the way we celebrate Thanksgiving.
With more stores holding shopping hours on Thanksgiving Day, many people will cut their celebrations short or eliminate them altogether to get to work on time or score the best deals. Both scenarios have drawn public reaction ranging from outrage to indifference, with critics wondering why retailers and shoppers would sully the Thanksgiving tradition with consumerist values.
Nine out of 10 consumers said they don’t plan to shop on Thanksgiving, according to a University of Connecticut poll released Monday, with 49 percent saying they disapproved of retailers opening that day.
But some experts say laying the blame on retailers isn’t so simple. For retailers and and some employees, Thanksgiving Day hours are an economic necessity. And for some shoppers, the compromises they make to shop on the holiday may be worth it.
Hill, 38, of Fairburn shops every year during Black Friday, but last year, he ventured out on Thanksgiving Day. “I was surprised there were so many people out on Thanksgiving, but they come out when they think they are going to get a good deal,” he said.
Last year, he scored iPhones for $99 and other gift items for his family. He would prefer to shop on Saturday instead of missing Thanksgiving Day football games, but he reasons that doing all the shopping on Thursday means having a day to himself on Friday.
“If I don’t have to go out shopping (on Friday), I have a whole day to relax,” Hill said. Still, he doesn’t share his post-dinner Thanksgiving Day plans with everyone. “You don’t even want to get into that conversation,” he said. For him, devoting a few hours after dinner to shopping pays off as the holiday season wears on. “I’m done and (everyone else is) still out shopping,” he said.
Store openings have been slowly encroaching on Thanksgiving Day for several years. This year, almost every major retailer will have some or all stores open on Thanksgiving. The creep of Black Friday into Thanksgiving is not an accident.
With a sluggish economic recovery that has many consumers feeling as if the recession is ongoing, retailers started promoting holiday sales as early as September, experts said.
As stores get closer to the season, they eye one another in hopes of outmaneuvering the other for advantage. When Macy’s announced it was opening on Thanksgiving, it caused a domino effect among competitors such as J.C. Penney and Kohl’s.
But it has also forced a cultural shift, the experts said. Retail employees now join the ranks of doctors, police and operators of convenience stores who know that time off during the holidays is not a given.
“In certain sectors, you know that is part of the job requirements,” said Tom Smith, a labor economist at Emory University. “Retail is moving in that direction.”
To cushion the blow, retailers hired thousands of seasonal workers who will share the load of the earlier hours. There are also financial incentives. At Target, all hourly team members who work on a national holiday, including Thanksgiving, and Black Friday receive pay equal to time and a half their hourly rate. In addition, those working any hours from noon on Thanksgiving to 8 a.m. on Black Friday receive extra pay, said Target spokeswoman Anne Christensen.
With unemployment remaining high, few are willing to refuse the request to work, even if a retailer doesn’t offer holiday pay as an incentive, Smith said.
Charles Broughton said he would be happy to work the holiday. The 60-year-old Lithonia resident, who spent some 41 years working in retail, lost his job almost a year ago and has been struggling to find employment.
“I’m from the old school,” he said. “I’m a baby boomer, so I know the value of work.”
For retailers — both online and brick and mortar — competition is stiff, and not following the crowd can mean losing out on much needed dollars.
“If you don’t open on Thanksgiving, people are going to go elsewhere,” said Lars Perner, assistant professor of clinical marketing at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.
And for consumers, Thanksgiving Day openings may not be such an awful thing. Waking at 4 a.m. to stand in line for hours can be demoralizing, Perner said. “If you can sleep in a bit the day after Thanksgiving, it is probably preferable for more people.”
Courtney Provitt only recently began shopping during Black Friday. Thanksgiving dinner is more of a late lunch that begins at 2 p.m. — not an unusual practice in his family. Last year, he headed to Toys R Us to buy gifts for his goddaughter around 6 p.m. Thanksgiving Day.
“The experience was fine,” said Provitt, 36, of Dunwoody, who managed to get everything he needed. “The worst thing about it was waiting in the cold.”
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