Black Friday Results and Holiday Sales Trends

Shoppers waiting in line at Best Buy.

Two weeks ago I wrote a blog post encouraging consumers to avoid the newly created Thanksgiving Day retail super sales, in the hopes of reminding people about the dual impact of patronizing big box stores on a major holiday. When you show up to purchase your crazily discounted X-Box on Thanksgiving, you send a message of encouragement that tells retailers you don't mind shopping on an important holiday, which by default means you are comfortable asking others to enjoy their turkey feast in a break room instead of at home with their families.

Well, the overnight stampedes are over and the pepper spray has been dispersed. Black Friday retail sales results have been reported, and the expert conclusion is that those mega-discount events were indeed successful in driving customer traffic - BUT they have likely only shifted the finite spending consumers planned for the holiday to happen earlier in the season. I suppose if you're Target, Best Buy, or Toys-R-Us this may still be good news because at least you know "you got yours" this holiday season, but at what cost?

Beyond the diminishing respect levels between big corporations and their employees (which sadly is of no concern to most companies), there is also the issue of compromised profitability. Doorbuster sale items are typically sold below the retailers' costs, and if aggressive marketing doesn't somehow convince shoppers to purchase several regular priced add-on items, then the doorbusters simply erode profit margins.

Boycott Stores on Thanksgiving and Christmas

Big box retailers Target, Toys-R-Us, and Best Buy are among the chain stores who will open their doors at midnight or even earlier this year on Thanksgiving night.

I won't be there to greet the holiday shopping season, and for that matter I won't spend a dime in any store anywhere on Thanksgiving day or Christmas day.

Enough is enough.


For salivating shoppers who have created a holiday tradition out of attending "black Friday" door-buster sales, these midnight openings may add a fun and twisted new element to the holiday shopping circus. For tens of thousands of retail employees though, this represents another thoughtless business decision that further separates people from the essence of what makes holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas special - the opportunity to take a single day away from the rat race, to breathe deep and reflect on what really matters, and to spend quality time with people you love.

I understand, better than most, that retailers are scrounging increasingly harder every year to capture their piece of the all-important Christmas pie, and frankly, while the commercialization of Christmas can be a bit annoying from time to time, that's not what bothers me.