A slew of national retailers are making a point of the fact that they aren't going along with the trend to open—and open earlier and earlier—on Thanksgiving Day.
Best Buy, Walmart, and Toys R Us have a history of opening earlier and earlier each year for Thanksgiving/Black Friday, and by the time they announce sale launch times for this year, it’s likely they’ll be welcoming deal-seeking shoppers sometime in the early afternoon of Thanksgiving, before the day’s first NFL game has even ended—and before the turkey is on the table in many American households. For that matter, many Walmarts are open 24/7 every day of the year including Thanksgiving (but not Christmas). Another contender for the title of biggest Thanksgiving Grinch is Kmart, which is opening at the depressingly early hour of 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day and will stay open for 42 hours in a row.
At the same time, however, there are some notable national retailers that are refusing to open on Thanksgiving. Forbes, ThinkProgress, and Mental Floss are among the resources that have rounded up two dozen or so stores that have confirmed they will remain closed on Thanksgiving. The list includes warehouse membership stores Coscto, BJ’s, and Sam’s Club, home improvement giants Home Depot and Lowe’s, department stores Dillard’s and Nordstrom, specialty retailers like GameStop, DSW, and PetCo, and discount chains such as Burlington Coat Factory, Marshall’s, and T.J. Maxx. There are a few others not cited on these lists, including Cabela’s (which is expected to be closed on Thanksgiving but is hosting special shopper events outside stores as early as 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving night, in anticipation of midnight openings), Menards, a home improvement mega-center chain based in Wisconsin, andVon Maur, an Iowa-based department store chain with 29 locations in 13 states.
Clearly, some consumers will go shopping whenever retailers say their doors will open for Black Friday sales, no matter if it’s a national holiday. A survey from Accenture indicates that 45% of consumers plan on shopping in some capacity on Thanksgiving Day or evening, nearly half of whom will physically go to stores between 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving and 5 a.m. on Black Friday. (Presumably, the majority of the rest will focus solely on online shopping.) Yet a much larger percentage of Americans aren’t fans of stores having Thanksgiving Day hours. Roughly six in ten Americans say they “hate” or “dislike” the fact that stores open on Thanksgiving, according to a recent RichRelevance consumer poll, while only a combined 12% claim they “like” or “love” the practice.
To play up to the legions of Americans who want to keep Thanksgiving as sacred and shopping-free as possible, it makes sense for retailers that aren’t opening on Thanksgiving to promote the fact that they’re staying closed on the holiday. As a side benefit, these retailers get to indirectly take pot shots at competitor stores that are opening—stealthily shaming them without overtly blaming them for“ruining Thanksgiving.”