Black Friday Retailers Pt. 1

"Ms. Nyberg is drawing the line now that major chains like Target, Macy’s, Best Buy and Kohl’s say they will open for the first time at midnight on Thanksgiving, and Wal-Mart will go even further, with a 10 p.m. Thanksgiving start for deals on some merchandise."


This is what we have come to: cutting far into Thanksgiving so that one store can beat the other to the first dollar, I guess.  The saddest part of this story is that the workers who spend time with their families on Thanksgiving will have their holiday cut short, more than likely.  But again, for what reason?  Money doesn't magically disappear from the consumer's hand if they don't spend it by a certain time, but apparently this is lost on, at least, the Best Buy CEO:


"One retail executive sounded sad about the decision to open earlier. Brian Dunn, the chief executive of Best Buy, said that the midnight opening “became an operating imperative for us” after competitors moved their openings back. “I feel terrible,” he said."


The truth is that Best Buy and no one else needs to open up the two-hours before their competitor.  People will make sure they are at your store if you have the deal they want, and if Mr. Dunn actually gave a rip about his employees, he wouldn't be opening his store at midnight.  And I bet that Mr. Dunn won't be torn away from his family during this holiday season so that he can go to work to load a heavy-ass TV into someone's car at midnight; if he had to, I bet he would have a different perspective on the situation.  He  does NOT feel terrible.  That is bullshit.


Of course, Mr. Dunn and his like will always fallback on good ol' platitudes about the market and how its invisible hand will magically guide their business to do the 'right thing.'  They will say, if people didn't come out and buy our cheap Chinese made crap at midnight then we wouldn't open.  And that's bullshit, too.  If Wal-Mart or Best Buy cared about their employees, like they claim, they wouldn't open until later in the morning, but the sad truth is that they don't care about their employees, and they are counting on you, the consumer, to not care about their employees either.  So this holiday shopping season, please don't only think about the product you are buying, but think about who it is you are buying it from.  The holiday season is a difficult one for everyone, but it is especially difficult for retail workers.


D


Quotes above are from this Yahoo News article: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/thanksgiving-day-shop-meets-rejection-123025036.html