Black Friday

Black Friday used to be an event.  Stores would open at 6 or 7 AM and people would be lined up waiting to get that one special deal.  Then the doors would open and chaos would ensue.  I’ve worked retail all my life and watched it.  Then K Mart started opening on Thanksgiving and a new trend stared.  Other stores like Wal Mart began starting their sales at 6 PM on Thanksgiving.  Other stores followed.  Now I can’t look at my email without a Pre-Black Friday Sale staring me in the face.  Amazon even has Black Friday for a week before the actual event.  In it all the magic of the event has been lost.  It has been exploited and degraded to just another shopping day.  That doesn’t even take into account the added stress on the retail associates.  There’s no going back now.  Soon stores will be open all day on Thanksgiving.  Many of them will close due to on line shopping.  I could see Sears and J.C. Penny closing their doors in the next 12 to 24 months.  Best Buy will fall soon after.  Even Macy’s will tumble.  Customers are shopping at the smaller boutiques and on line.  Internet companies don’t have the overhead of a brick and mortar store so they can charge less.  Which brings us back to Black Friday.  The items the stores do sell are loss leaders where products are sold at a loss to get you in the door in hopes you’ll buy something else.  Lately I see most people leaving with just the loss leader.  The stores can’t go on that way.  In 5 years Black Friday will look very different.