Target’s Permanent Thanksgiving Closure Pressures Rival Retailers To Follow Suit

If those Thanksgiving Day doorbuster stampedes of yore aren’t officially dead, they’re definitely on life support.  

This unseemly holiday afternoon spectacle, a staple of evening newscasts for the past 20 years — where eager shoppers are televised standing in line and then running into retailers (often injuring themselves or others) in order to grab whatever discounted merchandise they could carry — all but disappeared last year. 

Mercifully, with the help of COVID and a growing list of stores that have opted out of this dystopian indoor hunting tradition, our national day of thanks is being kept as a full-day event, rather than a half-day occasion of rushed eating followed by a trip to the mall as either a customer, an employee or a spectator.

Target is the latest to nail the doorbuster door shut after its Monday (Nov. 23) announcement to staff that it is making permanent its pandemic-era policy to keep stores closed all day Thursday.

Also see: Target Announces Permanent Thanksgiving Day Closure

“What started as a temporary measure driven by the pandemic is now our new standard — one that recognizes our ability to deliver on our guests’ holiday wishes, both within and well beyond store hours,” Target CEO Brian Cornell wrote in a note to employees.

It’s a move that not only pressures rival retailers to adopt similar standards, but also makes it that much more difficult for the dwindling list of “Yes, We’re Open!” shops to hide.  

A 2:1 Closed Ratio

According to an unscientific survey of retailers by USA Today, roughly 55 chain stores — including Target, Walmart, Dick’s, Lowe’s and Home Depot — will be closed all day Thursday, while nearly two dozen big nationwide brands still plan to keep the lights on at some or all of their locations, including CVS, Walgreens and all three dollar store brands, as well as Big Lots, Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s. 

Grocery stores are still a quirky subset of retail where truncated hours seem to be the norm, with several — but not all — big chains allowing last-minute procrastinators and forgetful chefs to get the edible items they need, in most cases, up until early afternoon.

While there is clearly a segment of the population that will always want to shop on Thanksgiving Day, the proportion of people who want to work that shift is presumably close to zero — although that decision is, of course, involuntary.  

That is the increasingly tricky challenge that retailers face as they must decide whose needs — customers or employees — take precedence on this national holiday.

Lost Sales vs. Deferred Sales

In an effort to stop the ‘Thanksgiving Creep,’ online petitions have been circulating for at least 10 years with mixed results, but public opinion has also shifted dramatically toward workers’ rights over the past 18 months — to the point where fear of a consumer backlash cannot be ignored as support for all-day closures shifts and grows.

There’s also the fact that, thanks to the ubiquity of eCommerce, holiday shopping is starting earlier and earlier each year, and Black Friday itself is becoming less of a one-day event and more of a seasonal theme. Also, there’s the newly expanded Cyber Week, nee Cyber Monday, that must be added into the equation.

In fact, PYMNTS research shows that about half of consumers have already started buying holiday gifts, and another 25% won’t start at least until Thanksgiving is over.  

Read more: Nearly Half of US Consumers Are Already Holiday Shopping

Further complicating the calculus is the patchwork of state laws that ban certain stores from opening, a well-intentioned policy position that often has the unintended effect of spurring cross-border sales migration, as well as lost tax revenue to neighboring states that aren’t as high-minded about the holidays. 

From a purely bottom-line perspective (which is admittedly colder than leftover turkey), in most cases, it is hard to argue that a retail sale not made on Thanksgiving Day is a sale lost forever, rather than a sale simply deferred 12 hours or shifted to the internet. It’s a retail reality acknowledged by Target and scores of other merchants that have chosen to draw the line.