Nearly Half of Stores with Black Friday Sales Refuse to Take My Money on Thanksgiving
November 22, 2013 Leave a Comment
As a fully indoctrinated member of consumer society (marketing ID# C86HCBA9D2GH), it’s my gleeful duty every year to participate in Black Friday. This glorious event is characterized by hordes of shoppers flitting between retail stores hours before anyone has any business being awake on a freezing November morning with the slim hope of giving money to giant corporations in exchange for slightly better products than that amount might ordinarily buy.
Everyone has their price, someecard user. Wait ’til they figure out how to sell snark and irony in bottles, and then discount that.
A popular, though incorrect, explanation for the origin of the name “Black Friday” claims that it is the day of the year on which retailers finally start earning a profit, using black instead of red ink in their ledgers. The competition for business that day is fierce, because the troublesome holiday of Thanksgiving is at last behind Americans and they begin vigorous Christmas shopping. Capturing shoppers that first day has required an escalating crush of discounts, advertising, and incentives to visit one store over another.
One incentive is opening time. The earlier a store can open, the thinking goes, the more eager shoppers it can attract. Normal 10:00 am, 9:00 am, 8:00 am openings are discarded; 7:00 am is a late start, 6:00 am is for the lightweights, 5:00 am marks the the true faithful, and 4:00 am, normally reserved for amateur astronomers and regretful lovers, is prime time. In recent years some stores even began opening at midnight.
If there’s no game console inside that turkey what is it doing in front of those kids?
The brinkmanship has only increased with the latest gambit. If folks are staying up until midnight just to technically shop on a day that isn’t a federal holiday, wouldn’t it be more humane to get over the stigma of “interrupting family time” “leaving just one freaking day free of commercialism” and and open at, say, 10:00 pm Thursday?
Extend that reasoning, and you have the current situation: more stores beginning sales on Thanksgiving Day than on Black Friday. Some open all day.
Now, granted, some of those stores are online only; it just takes electricity to accept your order. Shipment might not happen for hours. For genuine gratification of your antihistamine gift-giving needs first thing Thanksgiving morning, visiting a Walgreens or CVS is necessary. Meanwhile, across the street, Rite Aid makes you stand outside for another 23 hours while its employees selfishly sit around dinner tables.
This year, forsake your families. Forgo the feasting, conversation, and expressions of gratitude. After all, what use is giving thanks if we don’t rapaciously pursue the stuff we want? Support the retailers who enable the true pastime of our nation, every day of the year: SHOPPING.