With all the divisive hard news dominating the headlines lately, we’ve managed to find a soft news topic with the potential to be equally divisive: Walmart and Target will not open their stores on Thanksgiving for early Black Friday shopping.
Employees at the major retailers are likely celebrating, and would-be shoppers are likely lamenting the loss of what has become a Thanksgiving tradition for some. Personally, we’re glad to see Walmart and Target make this decision and we hope other retailers will follow suit.
As a 24/7 business, we at The Dominion Post understand that not everything can shut down for a holiday. But it has always seemed unnecessarily cruel to force retail workers to forgo their own Thanksgiving traditions and the opportunity to spend time with family and friends in order to appease ravenous sale-seekers. It’s also exhausting and frustrating to watch as, over the years, consumer “holidays” have encroached upon actual holidays.
We already have Black Friday. And Cyber Monday. And Small Business Saturday. Can we please go back to letting Thanksgiving Thursday be Thanksgiving instead of a Black Friday prequel?
Some people are probably disappointed by this decision. There are families who have created a tradition around an early Thanksgiving feast, followed by hitting the doorbuster sales at big box stores (with the added bonus of walking off that slice of pumpkin pie). For those people, the pre-Black Friday browsing is part of spending time with friends and family. Or it’s an opportunity to take advantage of lower prices without the extreme madness of actual Black Friday shopping.
But one family’s ritual of Thanksgiving Day retail therapy likely comes at the expense of someone else’s ability to enjoy their family traditions in order to accommodate those patrons. That’s a concern every year, but in 2020, there are other factors to consider.
Like an on-going pandemic. No one really knows what the COVID situation will look like come November. Maybe numbers will have dropped dramatically; maybe the case count will still be climbing. The coronavirus forces things to change on a nearly minute-by-minute basis. But right now, we have to assume COVID-19 will still be a concern come Thanksgiving.
As of last week, Walmart and Target hadn’t commented on their plans for in-store Black Friday shopping. But analysts who spoke to the Associated Press predicted retailers would have to shift more of their deals and products online and stretch out pre-Christmas sales over a longer period to keep patrons from flooding brick-and-mortar stores all at the same time. Some retailers are already prepping for expanded curbside pickup. But we won’t know for sure what holiday shopping is going to look like this year until we get there.
Even though the choice to close stores on Thanksgiving is a response to the pandemic, we hope Walmart and Target will continue to give their employees future Turkey Days off, and we hope other stores will do the same.
Morgantown Area News
'Thursday, April 25, 2024'
