What do you think of the expanded Black Friday shopping hours?

Eric Ringham November 25, 2011, 5:00 AM Nov 25, 2011

A number of major retailers, including Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Target, opened earlier than ever today to take advantage of the traditional start of the holiday shopping season. Today’s Question: What do you think of the expanded Black Friday shopping hours?

About the blogger

Eric Ringham

eringham@mpr.org

Hansen

I suppose I could get all pithy the sickening display of consumerism run amok and a case study in Christian mythology crowding out pagan good cheer. But I won’t. ;^)

Americans are unlikely to recover their former household wealth any time soon, so retailers had best get used to night-time openings on Thanksgiving.

Jaime

Online shopping is the way of the future. I buy almost all of my merchandise and gifts online and rarely do I ever even like to think about spending cash on anything. Nowadays the younger generation or “i” generation if you will is so intermingled with technology that most of these people shop online. As the older generations begin to dwindle out the amount of people that go out to actually shop on black Friday is decreasing. I would not be surprised to find out that the majority of people that shop in stores on black Friday will be older that those who shop online.

That said, in Apple Valley, both Walmart and Target parking lots were at overflow levels @ 9:30pm last evening.

James

Black Friday (new name included) is one of our traditions that disgusts me the most. Moving the start of Black Friday ever earlier is inevitable, and just more of the same.

I am surprised that (PR-conscious and bottom-line focused) MN companies (Best Buy and Target) are leading the way on this.

It’s hard to imagine that paying employees extra to staff stores to serve extreme bargain hunters in the middle of the night does much for either of their bottom lines.

And for me, and lots of other people, Target and Best Buy have now clearly joined the likes of Wal-Mart and K-Mart as sleazy retailers with simplistic, insensitive strategies, even as they pretend to be somewhat above the fray.

Zack

While online retailers can be very inexpensive and easy to use, nothing beats going shopping on Black Friday. You can find great prices on expensive gifts and have a great time doing it with friends or relatives. I understand that online shopping is taking flight and will eventually turn into the shopping experience of the future, but Black Friday is just as big a part of Thanksgiving as the turkey itself.

Melina

I do not shop on Black Friday. I think the holidays should be about people not things.

Nate

Anyone who camps out overnight in a parking lot, or cuts their holiday short to go stand in line to shop, need to have a crainiogram. There is absolutely no reason for this; the same deals you found at midnight this morning will be available the week before Christmas. It’s all marketing brainwashing.

Steve the Cynic

Black Friday is a pagan orgy of soul-less consumerism. That it’s creeping earlier every year is proof of our national moral bankruptcy. That this “tradition” has emerged as part of the American celebration of Christmas reflects a nearly complete misunderstanding of the teachings of the man whose birth is supposedly being celebrated.

Dennis

The world is complaining about our poor economy and jobs. Doesn’t black Friday directly affect both of these issues. I support it.

David

The trend for earlier opening hours for Black Friday has moved me to boycott Black Friday shopping altogether. I have waited in lines at 5:00 am in the past but the midnight opening hours are contrary to what the Thanksgiving holiday is all about.

People want access to the limited stock at the good prices offered in Black Friday sales, so they will line up as early as the stores offer them. If stores opened at 9am, people would be there. But the earlier and more absurd the hours, the more stress on employees (and consumers) who have to deal with the extreme conditions. Merchants could get the same volume of sales (and cause less misery) if they offered the same deals at a later time.

Amanda

Personally, I couldn’t care a less about Black Friday one way or another. Yes, I’ve done the 1:30am mall shopping before, and i’ve skipped the event altogether before. If there’s something I want or need, I’ll go, but i’m not going to stand in line for hours, nor am I going to go just to be a part of the mob mentality.

For me, this morning, i’m just visiting PetsMart for some of their great deals….but not until about 10am when some of the crowds disperse.

Gary F

I will not do it.

Each one to his own. I guess my time is worth more than that. So you save another $20 on a TV or another $100 total than you would by shopping in a week or two. These people are nuts.

Because you only buy Christmas stuff once a year, first one in gets the sale. Pretty soon, parents wont be trick or treating with their kids because they will be camping out at Best Buy to say $30 on something for their big “After Halloween Christmas Sale”. Then I believe we will be missing 4th of July Parades to get the Independence Day Pre Christmas Sale.

Get a life folks, relax with your family. Put the kids to bed a open another bottle of wine or another beer and enjoy one’s company.

Larry M.

I try to buy as many gifts as possible locally, locally made that is, so Black Friday sales aren’t a big thing to me, with that said I’d be more likely to go at midnight than 4am. It’s kind of nice that the “night owls” have a chance against the “early birds”

suzie

I don’t shop Black Friday as I am a leisure shopper not a mob shopper. But I do wonder if all the companies like K-Mart and Best Buy and Wal-Mart – well I wonder if their CEO’s and CFO’s and the company presidents and vice-presidents and board menbers were working in the stores at midnight or 2 in the morning? Yeah, right!!!

And Gary F, you are right – soon the Black Friday may follow right after we put away the Easter baskets. If the retailers could figure out a way to sell stuff for Thanksgiving, like they have for Valentines Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas – just think of all the Thanksgiving sales there would be Halloween night. Better get in line now!

John P II

How does the chant go – This is what capitalism looks like! It’s silly for people to expect retailers to view a holiday as anything but an opportunity for profit. The expanded hours are just good competitive marketing.

Chris Oinonen Ehren

I won’t support it. People who staff those stores have a right to celebrate holidays with their families. The practice of dangling a few loss leaders in order to gin up a feeding frenzy has resulted in violence in a few places, and for what? Stay home, enjoy your family, and let retail workers enjoy theirs.

Jason

Not so much about getting a bargain it’s consumerism amped up to a higher level; buying for buying’s sake.

P. Nielsen

Just another sign of retailers’/corporations’ greed, along with the desire of shoppers to get something they think is cheap and show off their cruel, bad behavior as reported today by a few of them. Another step in the direction of making any holiday just another day to try and make the almighty dollar. No one needs any of the stuff they are out trying to get…..we’d all be better spending our time serving and helping those who truly need the basics of life. It’s disrespectful of the hard work won by earlier people to even get a holiday away from work and regular routine.

David

How ironic is it that stores’ promote sales for one family holiday by scavenging another. I would think that if the stores were open regular hours, by closing time on Sunday their sales would be the same for the weekend as they are by opening up Thanksgiving night. At the most, all they are doing is moving the purchase up by a few hours – but then again, it is all about getting a few bucks off on a new X-Box, isn’t it? Personally, I boycott, for the entire holiday season, stores that open up earlier for “door buster” sales because customers demand it.

kimMN

I am so surprised to read all of these anti-consumer, anti-capitalism posts from so many “I support the Occupy Wall Street trashers and the ones who cry about Obama taking three years before he even began to address the 3.4 million out of work, which since he took office, another 2 million have lost their jobs.

And even sadder are the posted comments from MN atheists yet they_ have no problem putting blind FAITH into voting for our first mulato ( bi-racial) President who had NO history of work or accomplishments, not one accomplishment unless we call a ghost written book some how a big accomplishment for him?

Black Friday shopping spurs retail growth which spurs manufacturing and jobs. OWS protesters getting in the way of shoppers actually has cost tax payers 3 million across the country to clean up and police their useless movement, a movement, as I said months a go, turns out to be funded, materially supported and run and controlled by the extreme radicals that advocate to collapse the system by overwhelming it with entitlements. THAT goal is what these radicals have spoke of, their words yet so many don’t see anything except OWS students demanding a socialist “let government take care of me for ever” mentality.

Here are the OWS protesters demands”

1. Forgive our student loans..why should we pay back for our degrees in inane jobless fields we willing chose while the B.S. in engineering grads get all the jobs?

2. Give us guaranteed incomes regardless if we work or not, $20.00/ hr to hav a reasonable life style.

3. Support Obama’s pledge to tax everyone else..give us free healthcare and make doctors and nurses work for less, even if they_ paid back their student loans.

4. Demand Wall Street execs can not invest unless first ok’d by the White House.

These OWS class warfare moments are the ones used by our president to rally the misguided for his re-election.

The funniest part is there #6 demand:

“CONGRESS PASS SPECIFIC AND EFFECTIVE LAWS LIMITING THE INFLUENCE OF LOBBYISTS AND ELIMINATING THE PRACTICE OF LOBBYISTS WRITING LEGISLATION THAT ENDS UP ON THE FLOOR OF CONGRESS. Vote Here #6 (from OWS.com web pages.)

These fools have no idea how Obama appointed two campaign bundlers into the EPA for making the energy loans to who? Yup, to the same companies they used to work for and that had donated hundreds of thousands to Obama campaign. Wow….pay to play at work again but it is a good investment for those, they donate and get the free US Energy Dept.grants and guaranteed loans for useless companies, some of which were already about to go broke before they got the loans and grants. That free money boosted their stock price, some in Congress like D-Diane Feinstein bought in before the IPO release and made hundreds of thousands within days on these green failing companies. And Al Gore was another one, a former board member, who benefited $$$$ from these insider deals.

OWS should wake up and start protesting the real crooks at the White House but since the OWS people behind the scenes supported and organized this stuff, are in fact the same ones wanting to see America bankrupt to effect their idea of a New World order.Bush stated that desire in a speech in 2007 and Obama and Soros as well…read George Soros’ Open Society book. These are the radicals that openly supported Obama…HOPE and CHANGE…and what did that phrase really specify besides transparency that we never see in the White House? Exactly.

Lyle

I think an extended Black friday is cool for business to motivate sales.

kimMN has no idea about the hypocrisy in Mr. Obama’s class warfare speeches to get himself elected. While in Hawaii the buzz is about the Obama’s aristocratic change going from grassroots organizer for the Left to this disconnect. A President should be consistent but Mr. Obama is not up the task.

The Hawaii Reporter compiled an estimated account of expenses for the Obama trip and found that, before factoring in unknown costs, taxpayers forked over almost $1.5 million. Here’s how the paper broke it down:

Mrs. Obama’s early flight to Hawaii: $63,000 (White House Dossier)

Obama’s round trip flight to Hawaii: $1 million (GAO estimates)

Housing in beachfront homes for Secret Service and Seals in Kailua ($1,200 a day for 14 days): $16,800

Costs for White House staff staying at Moana Hotel: $134,400 ($400 per day for 24 staff) – excluding meals and other room costs

Police overtime: $250,000 (2009 costs reported by Honolulu Police Department)

Ambulance: $10,000 (City Spokesperson)

TOTAL COST: $1,474,200

And who knows what all of the other shopping trips have cost the tax payers of the USA? Spain vacation, separate flights to the Vineyard, the safarii trip to Africa. The list goes on and on while we teter on a great depression she spends freely with what is not her money.

Penny

@ jamie

//Nowadays the younger generation or “i” generation if you will is so intermingled with technology that most of these people shop online.//

Maybe you need to introduce your little ‘i’ to your big ‘I’ ; ) obviously you do not carry a credit card balance over into the next statement?

A youngster reported that she was able to purchase a top for less than $13.00 where it was regularly $40.00 by engaging in shopping from Thanksgiving into Black Friday. She said it was a gift. Here lies the next marketing strategy, which is guilting people into buying stuff and more stuff for each other at Christmas to prove-PROVE-that they value their friends and family.

I will say this, which is that I am truly horrified at the fact that the original mark up is so extreme that when merchants sell it for it’s real value, (with still a slight increase), they can still make a profit. Disgusting.

kimMN

@ Penny’s comment: HOW DARE those evil store owners want to make a profit by having sales to lower their maximum profit!

Have you ever started a business with your own savings and took the risk it would work? Were you ever held responsible to make a profit in order to make a payroll for others livelihood?

Grow up..if you don’t want things, don’t shop. Go live in China where the government will choose for you what and how much you can buy. Or, go live in Obama’s socialist dictator pal’s land of Venezuela where Hugo Chavez controls every company and chooses what products will be made and how much workers will be paid. Sounds good, eh? About as good as it worked out for Stallin and Castro where all I saw in Cuba were 1957 Chevys. Not a new car in sight.

Tom

It is silly. Soon they will realize what they are doing is bastardizing themselves. How much earlier can they open? 7 pm on Thursday? 5 pm on Thursday? How about noon on Thursday? Perhaps 6 am on Thursday? Maybe midnight on Thursday? You get where I am going here? All they are doing is making cyber Monday look like a better option for everyone involved.

kimMN

More Pepper-Spray

Go big or stay home with the liberal wussies.

Steve the Cynic

@kimMN

I think you’re a space alien. Can you prove you’re not?

Karen Howell

Enough about Black Friday!

Why aren’t you talking about SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY? Even American Express is supporting this. If I spend $25 in a small locally owned business with my AMEX tomorrow, AMEX will give me a $25 credit. It is up to US to get the economy moving and we can do that by buying locally from small business whenever possible.

Congress isn’t going to do anything except support lower taxes for the rich–who aren’t creating any jobs that I’ve heard about!!!!

You really missed a big story today,

kimMN

Once again some low life without any backbone or character uses my name to post on something about Pepper spray..probably was posted from some OWS paid Progressive as usual..sigh.

Karen Howel wrote the same class war fare stuff we have come to expect from the Rules for Radicals handbook by Saul Alinsky.i.e.,” Congress isn’t going to do anything except support lower taxes for the rich–who aren’t creating any jobs that I’ve heard about!!!!”

Geoff Brown

I really think Christmas sales are happening WAY too early this year. Yes, I know it’s a tough economy out there. But I was very moved by the online petition to Target stores, and how it made the point that a season that’s supposed to celebrate families, is actually worsening the situation for families where the parent(s) have to work at big-box store. It’s just a sad commentary on where we’re at these days.
Penny

@ Steve the Cynic

“I think you’re a space alien. Can you prove you’re not?”

That is an insult to Space Aliens everywhere.

If I were going to label KimMN based on her posts I might infer that she is blind.
Steve the Cynic

“…some low life without any backbone or character…”

Takes one to know one, I suppose.
cassie

kimMN—-What is WITH you, anyway?
Kevin McColl

I have worked in retail on many Black Fridays know its insane. Customers pretending not to understand whats going on just to get ahead of the line, and others honestly goofing. All the confusion, and mayhem. Worse if when people are just complete jerks.

Now to extend and eat into the holiday time employees need off to mentally prepare for this, much less just to have a holiday themselves is robbing America of the meaning of this holiday.

Black Friday is nothing but hype, and retailers know now its not the biggest shopping day of the year.

Definitely one of.

The reason it exists these days is for many marketing and name. Which I have nothing against. But Why can we NOT move it to Saturday….

At this rate we won’t have a Thanks and Giving day, a day of humble piety and remembering the efforts and people before and currently with us.
hugo

I’d be interested to see some data on the extent to which goods are actually discounted on Black Friday. Liquidators running going-out-of-business sales for bankrupt retailers often raise prices from their previous levels, counting on the excitement and expectations generated by the sale (and the supposed discounts) to fuel buying. If everyone “knows” that Black Friday is the day for big sales, retailers may be able to get away with price increases.
Emery

Americans are trained mice when they hear the word “Sale”.

What most economists/researchers will forget is the cost of standing in line. That is, the cost of standing in line before the store opens and the cost of standing in the checkout line. Those costs have to added to the cost of the products sold.

A few years ago there was an insult directed at Cleveland Cavalier’s basketball player LeBron James. I believe it was by the owner of a nationwide pizza franchise that also owned part of the Cavalier’s opponent in the NBA playoffs. As part of an apology the pizza franchises in Cleveland offered a maximum of 2 pizzas at 23 cents each. (23 is LeBron James’ jersey number.)

People stood in line for up to 2 hours to save $9.54 on the 2 pizzas.

One could say that their time (and wage value) is less than $4.77 per hour for a 2 hour wait. A one-hour wait would mean their wage value was less that $9.54 per hour.

What is the real paradox is that food pantries are reporting a steep rise in people asking for free food this year, yet crowds at Black Friday events are larger than last year.

Of course food pantries might not ask for proof of destitution, and people that have jobs now are less worried that they will be laid off in the future, or we might see another spend/charge/bankrupt cycle in 2010 from people gaming the system.