Bob CollinsJust about every major retailer is going on “all in” now on opening at midnight on the Friday after Thanksgiving.
“People want to shop through the night,” Martine Reardon, Macy’s executive vice president of marketing told the Associated Press. She said the expanded hours were in response to customers’ requests.
Really? People were asking to be able to go shopping at midnight? Were store employees begging to go to work at midnight, too?
Kohl’s announced today it, too, will open at midnight. In a press release, company chairman Kevin Mansell said. “We are making shopping easy and even more convenient this holiday season.” Just one question: What’s convenient about shopping for slippers for Uncle Andy at 1 in the morning?
The next step in retailing seems obvious: Destroy Thanksgiving Day. Target, for example, will experiment with Thanksgiving Day openings in Denver, matching some of the other discount store competition.
That makes it less convenient to get the family together on one day of the year without having to be distracted by going to work or going shopping. But perhaps people aren’t requesting that.
