Last year, we noticed that Black Friday had already begun to slip forward. This year, it’s worse.
Steve Baker, vice president at consumer trends watcher NPD, whom I referenced last year and who gave a nice seminar a couple of weeks ago on the likely shape of the holiday season, said it would be a good year, but that volume would be pulled forward — into the actual Thanksgiving day family time, which, let’s face it, has already devolved into a detached group texting event anyway — but even more, into Wednesday and, hell, the weekend before. Why not?
As Baker pointed out, there’s no free lunch here. It’s not like we’re all going to go out and buy TWO
So, what’s up with all this? It’s good ol’ America, and this is the free market at work. In a zero-sum game, if
A random sampling of my email on Wednesday before Thanksgiving:
- TRENDnet, a site flogging home networking equipment, was offering “WiFi Deals” on routers, switches, cams, and power-line adapters.
- Best Buy, which really has been at it for weeks already, had a “Get a Jump on Black Friday” e-flyer with a “Shop Now” button right in the middle of the banner head. If you could get past that, there were deals on iPads, LG HDTVs, free shipping on orders $35 and up, and a downloadable app, just to make sure.
- For those who absolutely had to shop before turkifying, HYPER, an accessories shop selling battery packs and storage products, said it would open its electronic “doors” at 12:01 a.m. Thanksgiving morning. I wonder when they’re actually “closed.”
And Thanksgiving morning:
- Best Buy, back at it again, said “Stores open today 5pm” in huge yellow letters, with a parenthetical “Stores close at 1 a.m. for those who were expected to have trouble pulling away from the table in time to reap the rewards of the “Doorbusters” in person. And just in case, the missive screamed “Doorbusters online now” in 60 point type. Best Buy, which is scrambling to staunch the business flow it has been losing steadily to Amazon.com, is offering you the best of both (online and retail) worlds by offering you both worlds.
- Old Navy opened its doors at 4 p.m. Thanksgiving Day, promising “the first 100 in line at your store” a chance to win $1 million.
- National Geographic, which, in its best moments poses as a quasi-governmental organization, was shamelessly flogging merchandise (coats, sweaters, scarves, bags, books, DVDs) on sale (“20% off sitewide) in its online store, calling it a “Black Friday Preview.”
Lenovo , which regularly sends out pitches, at least wished the reader a “Happy Turkey Day!” before launching into the deals (“Up to 54% off sitewide). To shield the incipient shopper from potential sources of conflict that might throw a spanner in the works, the e-flyer assured, “Free shipping, free returns, no restrictions, no questions, no stress.”
One conclusion here is that Oxford will have to induct “sitewide” into its vocabulary, if it hasn’t already. A quick check of oed.com indicated that the deal sites are definitely ahead of the curve.
And this is all before the actual Black Friday, which is supposed to be the biggest shopping day of the year. And Cyber Monday seems to have almost disappeared from the vernacular, perhaps because by now everyone understands that you can shop online anytime.
My biggest beef with this gush of materialism is that all the bidding for shoppers’ finite funds has spilled into one of the few family holidays left. And it’s not so much that MY meal gets disturbed by this activity because in fact it doesn’t (we don’t let it) but that thousands of employees will have to forego their well-deserved rest to cater to the frenzied crowd.
Kudos to this group of 30 stores “That Refuse to Stay Open on Thanksgiving” compiled by Jenna Mullins in Eonline: Ace Hardware, American Girl, Barnes &
To her 30, I’m adding Publix and Kohl’s.
Good on them for not playing on Thanksgiving Day. Fie on the rest of you!
