A recent report from CBS News really got our wheels spinning.
Maybe “ruining” is a harsh term, but it’s no secret that Black Friday is slowly becoming Black Thursday and Friday. Twenty years in the future, we’ll be telling our children about how almost everyone in America used to have a pleasant family meal together on Thanksgiving, watch a football came and fall into a turkey coma around 3 p.m., instead of lashing on our snow boots and scarves to go stand in line first thing Thanksgiving morning.
What’s causing this monumental shift toward more shopping on Thanksgiving Day? Effective marketing of the digital variety, say experts. And next week, as Black Friday inches closer, marketers will begin sending a record number of mobile messages, emails, and SMS entreaties out to consumers in hopes of enticing their debit and credit cards with early bird Thanksgiving Day sales.
And this effort will likely be fruitful for retailers once again.
Retailers like Macy’s (who has let us know that they’ll be open at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving—just in time for you to wake up from your turkey coma) are opening earlier and earlier—an average of two hours earlier than last year.
The Internet itself is also partially to blame. With so many products available all year round, with absolutely no closures or days off, it’s no wonder why companies that still run brick and mortar stores are pushing to be open all day, every day of the year.
Black Friday, so-called because this after-Thanksgiving shopping day would be what pushed most retailers into the black, has started to eat into the holiday itself. Research has shown that the people who turn out for Thanksgiving evening shopping are different from those who turn out for early-morning Black Friday shopping.
