Ben Spankowski
Retail Thanksgiving Mistake leads to Future Online Shopping Boom?
The latest development in the world of the consumer is turning out to be the new pledge catching on in the social media world, entitling those who take it to “Not shop on Thanksgiving.”
This new movement has been shared more than 959,000 times on Facebook as of mid-day Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving), and has sent the reputations of every major retailer taking part in this early opening tumbling. In many cases, previously dedicated shoppers have decided to abandon their favorite stores for good, an obvious dilemma for future profits.
Now, it’s not to say these retailers had no benefits to their early openings (bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars between them in those few hours), but their newly acquired reputation will certainly have more significant consequences in the future. Many economists suspect that profit for these retailers will dip so significantly that their “Thanksgiving shenanigans” will have done nothing but hurt the overall growth and profit of the upcoming months.
Yet, as one suffers, others will prosper. As consumers turn away from their previously preferred retail chains, they turn to the world of Internet shopping. A market projected by the very same economists to put up record-breaking profit margins and overall market growth in the coming weeks and months.
In fact, many of the latest stock market analysis are listing online shopping sites such as Amazon and eBay in the top five “must-buy” categories; a direct result of the recent projections for future growth.
And though the future is impossible to know, the evidence for a massive cyber-shopping boom and great investment opportunity is most certainly there.
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CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 27 Nov. 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. <http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/
The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. <http://www.economist.com/
"Nbc News Business." NBC News. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. <http://www.nbcnews.com/
Breitbart News Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. <http://www.breitbart.com/Big-
Facebook. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. <https://www.facebook.com/
It's funny you talk about this because I was just thinking the same thing over break. I understand that Black Friday is a big deal, and that retail stores are trying to increase their sales as best as they can, however, they cross the line when they begin to intrude on Thanksgiving festivities. I have heard from several people and have personally witnessed the Facebook posts you mentioned and I couldn't agree more. Due to this, Cyber Monday will surely gain popularity and will turn out being the most prominent shopping scheme over the course of the next few years. Although retail stores may boost their sales in the short run, they will surely perish in the long run.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you that the black Friday opening times are dipping too far into the Thanksgiving time frame. They might actually be hurting themselves. I was debating writing about this myself, but instead I wrote about Cyber Monday. Overall well written, however it may be a little short. I wouldn't be surprised if this year we see a store that opens at 4 P.M. breaking Walmart's ridiculous opening time of 6 P.M. this year.
ReplyDeleteBlack Friday opening are way to crazy and they hurt themselves this year. People finally had some common sense in staying with their families for thanksgiving. Stores wanted to open on Thanksgiving Day just so they could get there head start but not a lot of big crowds came. Good writing Ben!
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that all the consumers decided to suddenly boycott all of these perfectly good stores. I would like to know what their justification is. However, all the money could go to other parts of the economy that could be even more beneficial to the economy. Online stores will surely take some of the additional income, but I wonder if small business will also benefit on small business Saturday.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the previous comments that Black Friday beginning on the night of Thanksgiving is a little ridiculous, and very upsetting to shoppers and workers alike. There has been a lot of talk about the employees that already have to deal with the deal-craving and caffeine-crazed shoppers during the day on Friday being forced to go to work on the night of Thanksgiving - a time supposed to be spent with family and friends. Black Friday is given it's name for a reason: it's a Friday. If the already dauntingly early opening hours of Black Friday were not a great enough representation of America's obsession with spending and earning money, then this year's 6 PM opening on Thanksgiving surely will be; previous supports of Black Friday will certainly not be as supporting after this year. And for this reason, I think Cyber Monday will become much more popular in the upcoming years.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was ridiculous how early stores opened on Thanksgiving. I was mad about the early times because it's cutting in on Thanksgiving for the shoppers, but even more so for the workers. It's unfair to the workers who have to leave their Thanksgiving dinners early and go to work. At Macy's, workers had to come in so early that Macy's provided them with a Thanksgiving dinner. I think that's terrible. Even though I was upset about this change, it was convenient and got many more shoppers out. My grandma even came with us because it was earlier. Despite this, I think it's wrong and Black Friday should go back to being on Friday.
ReplyDeleteIt may seem like a bad idea to some people that stores are opening early for thanksgiving, but it can be beneficial for the workers and the economy. Opening early can provide more profits for the company which can allow them to expand, as well as the workers gaining a few extra dollars to their paychecks. Plus workers could use this to their advantage and bargain with the company to get bonuses for working on the holiday. But even though people will boycott this idea, it still wouldn't affect the companies who can also sell their goods online. Overall the early shopping day can be beneficial but its all opinion, some put work before family, and others put family before work.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually very happy with these results. Money has become such an important part of this culture, and sometimes it's just sickening to see the lengths to which people will go in order to make a little profit. In this case, stores put the thought of money ahead of time with family and time for giving thanks for all of the blessings in life. That was wrong. Consumers, though, put the thought of shopping and self indulgence ahead of those same things, and, in my opinion, that's even more wrong. It's nice to see that many other people shared this same opinion, and that morals are still in place for the majority of the population.
ReplyDeleteThough I am a fan of black friday shopping by reading this post I couldn’t agree more that this national event this interfering on a holiday that is very important. This year rather than others stores like Walmart started black Friday deals at 4:00 to lower the stampede and craziness of people. But what they don’t understand is that this is cutting into the time that people would be enjoying a delicious dinner with their families. By companies changing the times of this event I think it created more chaos for being and made it a lot less enjoyable because it defeats the purposes of getting up early and shopping the day away. Cyber Monday because it is always the same time I believe will become more popular and doesn’t interfere with family time.
ReplyDeleteWell black Friday used to be the day that everybody would look forward to to go shopping for all of the sale. It still is but why would companies want to keep on putting these enormous sales on item just so that they wont end up making any money? It makes no sense. It may be nicer for shoppers to go black Friday shopping after they eat Thanksgiving dinner but for all of those employees that have to miss all of thanksgiving to work just isn't right.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I thought you had a good topic to talk about, I thought as though it was very short and didn’t create a lot of information to give. I wanted to see a video on this topic, but there wasn’t one given. I like how you said, “As consumers turn away from their previously preferred retail chains, they turn to the world of Internet shopping.” I liked that you said this because back then there was a lot of people who went shopping in stores, and now everyone is shopping online.
ReplyDeleteAs the world continues to expand and delve exponentially deeper into the world of technology, more and more previously "real life" only situations will be replaced by internet and other technological substitutions.
ReplyDelete