My 11 year old son asked me a few weeks ago if we could go shopping on Black Friday. He’s heard about it and was curious, thinking it would be “cool” to be shopping in the middle of the night.
Sadly, he was born a few years too late. Black Friday has died, as has a crazy holiday shopping tradition that my children will not know.
I’ll admit I’m not a shopper; I don’t enjoy browsing through the mall for hours on end. I’m more of a “get in and get what you need” kind of person. But, I did shop on Black Friday twice – I wanted to see what all the hype was about.
Even for us non-shoppers, there was something almost fun about standing outside in the cold at midnight or 1am, waiting for the store doors to open. For me, it wasn’t so much about the deals (well, it was a little bit), but more about the excitement of the start of the holiday season. Kind of like waiting to break out the Christmas music and decorations until the day after Thanksgiving, the “official” start to the season.
I saw my first Christmas tree on display, fully decorated this past September. Another tradition gone.
I get it – I really do. E-commerce and technology have ramped up the competition, and once a retailer thought to open a bit earlier on Black Friday – say midnight instead of 2am – it became a game changer. Retailers were out to one up each other, until we’ve reached the point of opening on Thanksgiving Day, starting at 5pm or 6pm. Walmart never closed – it was business as usual, with the door busters starting at 6pm.
While this trend has been moving toward the earlier opening hours, I was curious this year as to the customer response. Would they head out after Thanksgiving dinner, or wait to “celebrate” Black Friday how it used to be?
From unofficial reports, Black Thursday (or Gray Thursday as some are calling it), seemed to be a big success. From lines to crowded parking lots, customers seemed to respond by filling the stores. The customer has spoken, and this year clinched it – Black Thursday was born.
For those who didn’t want to leave the comfort of their homes, e-commerce deals were plentiful on Thanksgiving as well, and accounted for a large percentage of shopping on that day.
Fortune ran an article that got feedback from some of the top CEO’s to get their thoughts on Thanksgiving shopping. Both CEO’s from Target and Toys R Us reported that while customers were focused on the doorbusters, they also tended to shop for other items throughout the store – a big win in the retailers’ eyes. Brian Cornell, CEO of Target, visited one of the retail locations on Thursday to get an idea of how customers were shopping. He appeared pleased with what he saw:
“What I’ve been most interested in is what’s in the (customer) basket. You look at the people who you know came out for a specific, but then they’ve actually taken the time to shop other categories, which is really important. The fear here is seeing baskets or carts with one item.”
The National Retail Federation released its report on Sunday, and despite the buzz around shopping this weekend, they are reporting lower than average numbers this year. The report states that consumer shopping was down over the weekend, with 133.7 million consumers shopping in stores and online, which is a 5% decline. Spending was also down, at $50.9 billion vs $57.4 billion last year.
Some of the possible reasons cited include:
- Sales started early: some of the big box retailers started sales right after Halloween, capturing consumer spend well before turkey was on the table.
- Earlier openings: Black Friday was compromised by many retailers opening their doors shortly after dinner on Thanksgiving.
- Economy is better, but not fantastic: while gas prices are at recent lows and spending seems to be up, consumers are still a bit hesitant. That, coupled with promised discounts all season long (think “Cyber week is coming” – what happened to Cyber Monday?), consumers may be waiting to spend, or spreading their purchases across a longer period of time.
While we have some time yet to see how holiday shopping 2014 will pan out, one thing is clear: Black Friday has officially passed away. There are some positives to this – there were little (if any) reports of grown adults resorting to violence over a big screen TV, and no one was trampled in the crowds – but the excitement of the start of the holiday season is not what it used to be.
