Jump to content

Black Friday sales fall, Thanksgiving & online sales increase


Brad

Recommended Posts

Seems like it doesn't matter if they open 6pm Thursday, 8pm Thursday, midnight or early Friday. They'll get roughly the same amount of sales for the 2 days combined either way. I don't see them ever going back to opening Friday morning, but I wouldn't be surprised if the open times we saw this year are as early as they go. In other words I'd be very surprised if Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc... open at 3-4pm next year.

 

No surprise online sales we up big again this year. That's a trend that will continue for a while (and is a big reason why this site exists).

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree. Now stores will use this as "proof" that consumers want to shop on Thanksgiving. The fun days of an actual Black Friday are over it seems.

 

I was in the Wal-mart in Plaistow New Hampshire Thanksgiving around 7:00pm.  The parking lot was full and they were letting people in 20 at a time as 20 came out.  There was a steady flow of merchandise through the exit doors.  From chatting with people in line, I can tell you that many were from Massachusetts where Blue Laws prohibit Thanksgiving openings.  They came a good distance to participate.

 

This was in the midst of a major blackout that saw 200,000 300,000 families without power Thanksgiving and Black Friday.  (I stopped in to Wal-mart while getting gas for my generator.)

 

A lot of people DO enjoy Thanksgiving openings.  No doubt about that.

 

This definitely dilutes BF sales.  So does the early shopping.  One of the reasons BF came to be is that families received their Christmas Club checks in November.  Before there were sales, there were consumers trying to get their shopping done on the last long weekend before Christmas.  With the introduction of layaway and credit cards, the arrival of the Christmas Club checks has become less important.

 

That's OK with me.  I got what I wanted without standing in line (I didn't want anything at Wal-mart). 

Edited by len_mullen
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree that with results like this, they won't likely be changing opening day back to Friday anytime soon. However, I wonder if people would like it if the stores only did their online sales on Thanksgiving and then only did their in store sales on Friday? The online sales would be huge and people wouldn't have to work the stores or shop outside of the home on the Thanksgiving holiday, and then the foot shoppers could get their in store shopping back on Friday. I would love to see this done at least once, just to see if it worked well. I purchased all that I was after during the online sales early Thursday, so I only went to a store that evening to get an item for a family member that was sold specifically in store. At any rate, this was kind of a laid back Black Friday for me, but what made it really easy was the Online Black Friday Tracker that we had here on GD!! That thing is just awesome for checking to see when things were coming up live for the websites. I used to be all about the in store shopping but this site makes the online shopping so easy that it's become my new fave way to shop Black Friday. :)
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Online shopping is the way to go.  You don't lose time with your family, you don't fight crowds, or come into contact with unruly people.  You can also get done shopping quicker as you can check out without standing in line, even if the website is running slow. 

 

Thanksgiving openings allow people who will not wake early a chance to get to the stores for the doorbusters.  This can increase total sales and benefit the company.  Opening earlier on Thanksgiving will give decreasing rewards as people still like to cook for Thanksgiving dinner.  A 7 or 8 am opening time may show an increase, but the store will not see much sales increases after about 10am through 3 or 4 as people are either cooking or eating their dinner.  Any early morning sales spike will drop significantly as people leave to cook or eat their prepared feast.

 

Black Friday, as such, is now gone as it has been moved to Thanksgiving evening.  If a store opens at 5am after being completely closed on Thursday, they will risk few people showing up.  This is because most people went out on Thursday to all of the other sales and became too tired to shop by 2 or 3 am (or earlier).  A 5am opening will have decreased sales because most of the shoppers will be sleeping or too exhausted. The Friday numbers also reflect the items that are now out of stock.

 

The only way for a store to combat the fatigue would be to have a set of staggered doorbusters, similar to how Walmart is doing it.  Perhaps open at 6p on Thursday with a set of doorbusters, again at 8p to filter out some of the people.  Friday doorbusters should start at 8am or 9am allowing for people to get a little sleep and perhaps bring out the people who avoided the crowds the night before (at least that would be for the first couple of years.)  This may bolster the Friday numbers and increase overall sales.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I personally would prefer a Black Wednesday (face it, we're heading there), close on Thanksgiving, and start up again at midnight on Black Friday.

 

But I bought everything I wanted online. All my other gift shopping, I'll do it over the month of December. I went out on BF and didn't find anything I needed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Academy was closed Thursday, and opened at 5:00 Friday morning. Obviously, I don't know what their total numbers for Friday looked like but judging solely on the crowd that was there at 5:00am I don't think being closed Thursday hurt them, lol.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

People have been speculating that lower gas prices would revive the economy.  They haven't checked the prices on eggs, milk, and ground beef, I guess.  Besides, people who can spend freely already have two of everything, there is nothing new out there, and BF sale prices were, in general, not much different than any other sale price.  My big spend this week was to change carriers and buy a bunch of iphones.  I got some accessories for those phones, a couple of BD players, some BDs, some DVRs, and a coffee maker.  No TVs, no computers, no video game consoles, no tablets.  

 

I sensed less enthusiasm here as well as well as a lot of contempt for Thursday Openings, Black Ten Days, Black Month, and other expansions of Black Friday.

 

It will be interesting to see how things go today and whether the Big Sales start this month.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In talking with employees a lot of them told me Thursday wasn't as busy in store as years past. I think a lot of people ordered online Wednesday night and then did other shopping on Friday and Saturday. I would prefer that Thursday only be an online day and Friday for the going out myself.

 

Now I'm waiting for all the christmas decorations to go one sale since we will have to replace most of ours from the move for next year :)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wasn't going to go shopping on Thursday but my son went to bed early, so I figured I might as well. I didn't get out until after 9pm. Kohl's was dead. I thought the toys were going to be completely picked over but I found everything that I wanted. I only waited in line behind 3 people. The cashier said they were slammed when they opened and then it went quiet, then it picked up a little again. I just got there during a lull I guess. I went up to Wal-Mart after that and there was no line at all. None. I didn't buy much there, but I was shocked that it wasn't slammed. I guess I was there after the door-busters.

 

With all of the holiday pay that stores have to spend to open on Thursday, I wonder if it's worth it to them to keep opening on Thursday. Spreading it out over two days seems to work well for crowd-control, but I wonder if it's worth it financially. You can pay people less to work on Friday and get relatively the same sales for the total weekend (assuming that everyone who shopped on Thursday would have shopped Friday instead).

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not opposed to shopping on Thanksgiving, but if people are going to shop mainly on Thursday why not just go back to Black Friday and let the employees spend it with their families?  I went out briefly on Friday and the stores were empty.  Not sure what the point is of opening on Thanksgiving when stores could offer the same deal one day later. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

All good points here.  Thursday would be great to just have online shopping, Friday in the stores (both for family time for shoppers & employees, and the retailers having to pay for their employees to work).  I can see why Thursday can be an advantage because nearly everyone is not working that day, whereas Friday many people are back to work.

 

The problem with just having the sales in store one day later (on Friday) is that each retailer wants to be the first ones to open so you go to their store first and but everything you need while you're at their store.  In doing so, we'll see the trend we've seen over the past 3-4 years where they'll open at 6am, then 4am, then midnight, then we're right back to opening on Thursday again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not agreeing or disagreeing with the whole open/don't open on Thanksgiving thing, but a lot of people are assuming every store actually pays holiday time. That's simply not the case, I can't speak for other states but in PA there is no law requiring a company to pay holiday time. Many of the stores that are open can pay straight time and opt to do so.

 

The biggest reason to open on Thursday imo is the fact that more people are off, creating the potential for more revenue. Whether it's worth it or not I don't know, I know I got practically every item I wanted online in the early morning hours of Thanksgiving. I went out Thanksgiving night but that is more of a traditional thing I do with my mother who refuses to shop online. I don't know what the right answer is for when and where Black Friday should start, but I do know if they're open they will come. We mostly all will at some point and in some form.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...