Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the Newly Dubbed Grey Thursday
Thursday, November 13th, 2014 -- 7:17 AM
-In two short weeks people will be sitting down with their families to have a delicious meal and celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. For others, however, Thanksgiving has become a day of shopping and deals.In the past few years, retailers have been opening earlier and earlier on Black Friday and have finally pushed their open times to Thursday, the Thanksgiving holiday, dubbing Thursday as Gray Thursday.
However, many stores are divided on when to open for the biggest shopping day of the year. Stores like Costco, Barnes & Noble, Sam's Club, Home Depot, Nordstrom, TJ Maxx, Marshall's, DSW, Pier 1 Imports, Burlington Coat Factory, Petco, Radioshack, GameStop, Patagonia, Menards, REI, Dillard's, and American Girl have all stated that they won't be opening on Thanksgiving so their employees can spend the day with their families.
On the other side of that spectrum, you have stores like Kohl's, Sears, Macy's, JC Penney, Kmart, Shopko, Target, Old Navy and Best Buy that are opening their doors anytime between 4pm and 8pm on Thanksgiving. Or in the extreme case with Kmart and Shopko, they'll open at 6am and 7am, respectively, on Thanksgiving and, in Kmart's case, will remain open for 42 hours straight.
With the earlier open times, most people believe that the holidays have become to commercialized and have asked retailers to push back their open times to Friday so their employees and customers can enjoy the day with their family. On the other side of that coin, retailers say they have every right to open early if consumers demand it and that Black Friday is the most important shopping day of the year for them. They also argue that Black Friday shopping helps stimulate the economy and creates jobs.
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