Since 2005, Cyber Monday has been the end of Thanksgiving week, as office workers’ brains haven’t quite returned to work, and they use the time to shop online. At least, this is what online retailers must themselves as they schedule sales and other promotions for the additional shopping holiday. Yet is Cyber Monday still a thing, or do we all have shopping holiday fatigue by the time it comes around? [More]
black friday creep
Report: Macy’s To Open An Hour Earlier On Thanksgiving Day
By 10.17.16
While the trend of not opening on Thanksgiving Day and making sure everyone knows it spreads across the retailscape, some stores are sticking with the previous trend of opening on the holiday. One example: Macy’s, which apparently has been so successful with the practice that it’s reportedly moving its Thanksgiving Day opening time back an hour, to 5 PM. [More]
Yep, Spring Black Friday Is Still A @#$@*$% Thing
By 4.1.16
Most retailers use Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, to kick off their biggest shopping season of the year, even if they also move the sales kickoff around a bit. For stores that sell home-improvement and gardening supplies, spring is their biggest shopping season. That impeccable logic led to the invention of Spring Black Friday, which we first noticed in 2013. It isn’t going away. [More]
Macy’s Stores Will Open At 6 P.M. On Thanksgiving Day
By 10.29.15
If you were worried that you might have to spend all of Thanksgiving Day at home and not inside a Macy’s store, there’s no need to worry. The department store chain will open on Brown Thursday at 6 P.M., allowing employees some of the holiday with their families if they choose to or are asked to work. [More]
Target’s Black Friday In July Promotion Is Back To Annoy Us
By 7.9.15
Sure, Amazon is creating a new shopping holiday that they claim will be even bigger than Black Friday to honor their 20th anniversary, but we can be thankful for one thing: they are not actually referring to it as “Black Friday.” Many other retailers do regardless of what time of year it is, and Target has brought back their annual summer Black Friday promotion. [More]
Toys ‘R’ Us Opening At 5 P.M. On Day That Used To Be Called ‘Thanksgiving’
By 11.7.14
Are you looking forward to spending Thanksgiving Day standing in line and fighting with fellow shoppers over the last remote-controlled dinosaur? No? It doesn’t really matter whether you plan to show up or not: opening at 5 P.M. on Thanksgiving Day worked out for Toys ‘R’ Us last year, and they’re planning to do the same again this year. [More]
Simon Mall Worker Opposes Thanksgiving Day Opening, Starts Petition
By 11.20.13
We don’t put much faith in online petitions as agents of change, but they can empower people who have no other way to speak out. That’s the case for a worker at the Menlo Park Mall in Edison, N.J. who is wholeheartedly against his the mall’s plan to open during the evening of Thanksgiving Day. [More]
This 1995 Bradlee’s Black Friday Commercial Is Horrifyingly Prophetic
By 11.18.13
Back in 1995, the now-defunct discount chain Bradlees still existed. It was thriving, in fact. This 1995 commercial for the chain’s Black Friday sale, unearthed and shared through YouTube, shows that much more than hairstyles has changed in American commerce in the last 18 years. [More]
Hundreds Of Simon Malls Will Open On Thanksgiving Day, Stay Open 26+ Hours Straight
By 11.8.13
Simon Property Group might not be a household name, but you’ve probably visited one of their establishments before: they’re the whole or partial owner of hundreds of malls. That’s 242 million square feet of retail space and thousands of stores in almost every state, Canada, and Asia. Most of them are opening up during dinnertime or the early evening on Thanksgiving Day. [More]
Tipster: Staples To Open at 9 P.M. On Thanksgiving Day
By 11.5.13
Last Black Friday, office supply chain Staples slept in, relatively speaking. They didn’t open up until 5 A.M. on Black Friday. No snoozing and losing out on those early shoppers in 2013: this year, mysterious folks in red shirts have told us that Staples stores are opening up at 9 P.M. on Thanksgiving Day. Disrupting family-based holidays: that was easy. [More]
So Macy’s Is Opening At 8 P.M. On Thanksgiving. What’s In It For Them?
By 10.16.13 — Updated: 10.29.15
Macy’s recently confirmed that they’ll be opening up at 8 P.M. on Thanksgiving Day. They’re not the first retailer to open their doors while many Americans are eyeing their third slice of pie, but they are the first to announce an obscenely early Black Friday opening time. (Of course, we broke the story two weeks before that.) Why is the department store chain risking backlash and opening so early? [More]
Macy’s Polls Employees About Opening At 8 P.M. Thanksgiving Day
By 10.1.13
You weren’t all that attached to the idea of quality time with your family, right? Last year, Target opened its doors at 9 P.M. on Thanksgiving Day, and Walmart, Sears, and some Toys ‘R’ Us stores welcomed shoppers at 8 P.M. Now we’ve received word that Macy’s is asking its employees about their availability to work on Turkey Day itself. [More]
Deals Are Better On Thanksgiving Than On Black Friday, And I Hate Everything
By 9.23.13
Here at Consumerist, we’ve been vociferously against Black Friday creep, the slow slide of the first official day of holiday shopping frenzy back into Thanksgiving Day. Last year, we supported retail employees who were against opening on Thanksgiving, and humbly suggested that retailers just go ahead and move Black Friday back a week. No one is listening to us. [More]
Target: Yeah, Summer Black Friday Is The New Christmas In July
By 7.15.13
As we noticed a recent flurry of “Black Friday” sales even though it’s sweltering out and there is no leftover turkey in our fridges, we began to wonder: have retailers finally lost their minds? Or, as one reader suggested, is a midsummer Black Friday sale just an inclusive version of the more traditional Christmas in July? [More]
Now February and April Also Have Black Fridays
By 7.12.13
Traditionally, “Black Friday” refers to the day after Thanksgiving and the semi-official kickoff of the winter holiday shopping season in the United States. In modern times, however, traditions are meaningless and retailers have decided to just throw Black Friday sales whenever they want. Like July 12. Or even February. [More]
Okay, Great, So Black Friday Is July 12 Now
By 7.11.13
Last November, we humbly proposed moving the all-American orgy of consumerism known as Black Friday back a week so retail employees and dedicated shoppers might get to enjoy their Thanksgiving and spend some of the holiday with their families. Target has taken our idea a little too far, and seems to think that Black Friday is tomorrow, July 12. [More]
Retailers Squeezed $25 More Out Of The Average Shopper With Extra Thanksgiving Sales
By 11.26.12
The Black Friday creep seems to have paid off for retailers (even as it casts a dubious shadow over Thanksgiving), as shoppers shelled out about $25 more per person during this year’s Thanksgiving-centered sales last week. Of course in many cases, Black Friday wasn’t even limited to just Friday, with plenty of retailers hosting sales and opening their doors on Thanksgiving. Overall, shoppers spent about 13% more than we did last year. [More]
Black Friday Creep: A Security Guard’s Perspective
By 11.20.12
It’s hard to hear the word “doorbuster” without remembering the death four years ago of Jdimytai Damour, the 34-year-old temporary crowd control worker stationed at the door of a Long Island Walmart who was trampled to death when the crowd ripped the door off the hinges, clamoring for the best deals on flatscreen TVs as the global economy collapsed. [More]
