[Infowarrior] - OT: Why are retailers ruining Thanksgiving?

[Richard Forno]

Nov. 19, 2012, 10:24 a.m. EST

Why are retailers ruining Thanksgiving?

Commentary: Customers want Black Friday to start on Thursday

By Jennifer Waters, MarketWatch

http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/story/print?guid=44B93284-3253-11E2-A56A-002128040CF6

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Say goodbye to Thanksgiving — and Black Friday while you’re at it. Retailers are wrecking holiday time for shoppers and shop workers alike.

This year will see an unprecedented move by the big boys of retail to open their stores earlier than ever on Thanksgiving Day, putting pressure on the traditions — from indulging in an oversize dinner to loafing around watching football — that many families hold sacred.

“Retailers have basically ruined every holiday,” says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group, a retail research consultant. “They have commercialized every single holiday by creating a good reason to  promote something and drive traffic.”

They do it for the simple reason that, well, they can. It follows that adage from “Field of Dreams” that if you build it, they will come. If you open the store earlier, they will shop.

We’ve seen the creep into Thanksgiving Day grow more aggressive each year but never getting this close to family time. Bold steps have been taken over the last three to five years as retailers first encroached on the day with online teasers for midnight Black Friday sales at the bricks-and-mortar stores to online sales during Thanksgiving Day to just opening the stores while many are still just getting to the turkey.

Bill Tancer, the general manager of global retail for Experian, sees it as a confluence of sophisticated retailing and consumer boredom, thanks to the swelling population of cyber-deal surfers on Thanksgiving. He’s been following for the past decade a growing group of restless consumers who turn to the Internet for entertainment and holiday shopping on the holiday. From 2003 to 2011, the No. 1 online shopping day has been Thanksgiving, according to his findings. Last year was the first that the so-called Cyber Monday, the Monday after the holiday, eclipsed Thanksgiving Day in online sales.

It makes sense then for retailers to just open the doors. They wouldn’t if we didn’t walk through them.

Though shoppers have been grousing for the past couple of years about Black Friday keeps creeping into Thanksgiving Day, it's shareholders who are giving Target grief over the decision to kick off its sales at 9 p.m. on the holiday.

“Retailers are getting savvy to the fact that Thanksgiving Day is such a busy online shopping day that they’re now keeping their bricks-and-mortar stores open on Thanksgiving,” Tancer says. Among those making early plays for customers this year are Sears, Target, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Toys “R” Us and Gap.

“I don’t know if it’s stealing our time from us, since consumers have shown a strong interest in searching for those deals and making purchases on Thanksgiving,” he says. “There’s a lot of dead time while that turkey is in the oven. It’s a good time to shop.”

So we have no one but ourselves — or our neighbors — to blame. Cohen claims that retailers who bucked tradition for revenue potential last year were rewarded with a 22% hike in Black Friday weekend business over those who didn’t open shop. That means there were lots of folks willing to forgo food and football to shop.”

Miro Copic, who sees this trend turning into the “new normal” for Thanksgiving within five years, says it’s not about stealing time from our families but giving us alternatives. (Wait! Not everyone watches football?)

“There will be a lot of backlash on blogs and such, on family values and how we’re becoming too commercial,” says the San Diego State University marketing professor. “But at the end of the day, it’s a choice. If I’m a retailer and I’m open, I’m telling you that you don’t have to come, but I’m giving you a convenience if you want to come.”

Retailing is a lot like herding, experts say. “If one store opens on Thanksgiving Day, competitors will follow — since it is a battle over market share,” says Chris Christopher, an economist for IHS Global Insight.

That’s been true practically ever since gift-giving became the thing to do on Christmas. But it’s even more true now, in the current environment of choppy consumer spending — hot one month, slow the next.

Retailers like to be what they call “top of mind” to the consumer. If you shop at their stores early and have a good experience, you’re likely to return before Christmas. The trick is to get you in the door, even if they barely break even on what they call the loss leader, that dirt-cheap discount they use as bait. They’re counting on your impulse purchase to pay their bills. If they can start that mind game at the unofficial kickoff to the season, they’re convinced, they’ve got you for the entire period.

“They feel they have to start early, and motivate that customer, and get that sense of urgency going,” Howard Davidowitz, chairman of retail consultants Davidowitz & Associates told MarketWatch. “They’re desperate, given the economy.”

We’re finally seeing some backlash from this grab for your pocketbook, but it may be too little, too late. Casey St. Clair, who has worked at Target for six years, has collected more than 226,600 signatures through a petition on social-change advocacy site Change.org ( Change.org ) to pressure the retailer to leave Thanksgiving alone. This is the second straight year that those in the trenches have attempted to rally the masses and St. Clair’s efforts are gaining some traction.

“The quest for the almighty dollar has become ridiculous. Let employees have their holidays too,” Celeste Brodeur, of Clarksville, Tenn., wrote in the petition.

Moreover, St. Clair is getting support from the people who Target’s executives might actually pay attention to: shareholders. See: Target faces ‘Black Thursday’ backlash from shareholders .

“I would gladly accept a slightly lower growth rate or slightly lower dividends in order to preserve the Thanksgiving holiday for all Americans,” shareholder Ben Rabizadeh wrote in an email to Change.org.

The big dogs are coming out too. Harrington Investments is a socially responsible investment firm out of Napa, Calif., that holds 16,635 shares. It appealed directly to Target Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel in a letter to just say no. “This will inevitably put our employees in a situation where they must choose between keeping their jobs or spending quality time with their families,” the firm wrote. Target, like most retailers who open on Thanksgiving, insists it turns to volunteers first to man the stores.

Cohen argues that Thanksgiving is going down the same path that other once-sacred family-time holidays have traveled and consumers have since embraced. Remember when stores were closed on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day? “This is an American holiday,” he says. “It’s not like they’re taking the Christ out of Christmas.”

Not yet at least, but it does raise the question of whether it’s just a matter of time before they do.

“No one is forcing you to shop,” Cohen says. “If you don’t want to shop, stay home, sleep off your turkey dinner. Go ahead.”

---
Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.