Retailers Starting to Avoid Thanksgiving Openings

In recent years the waters of Black Friday were significantly muddied by retailers pushing store openings to Thanksgiving Day. The move resulted in both a public and employee backlash who prefer Thanksgiving as a time for family and personal time off. Social media campaigns were launched to boycott Thanksgiving sales and holiday traditionalists were quick to criticize the money-grab. But retailers insisted they had to do something to combat online retailer who were capturing sales during Thanksgiving hours.

Now it appears offline retailers are starting to cave. More than a week ago troubled retailer Staples announced it would not open on Thanksgiving. And today, Game Stop has announced they will skip opening their stores on Thanksgiving too. Both retailers claim they prefer to embrace the values that such time is important to employees and their families.

That’s a crock.

The truth is that neither Game Stop or Staples can justify the expense of paying employees holiday rates to work hours many shoppers protest. And that’s the cold hard truth.

But it is a good trend.

But can anything be done to stop people from shopping Amazon in between the football and the pie?

Hardly.