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Gray Musings on Black Friday

Retailers should reassess their Black Friday strategy rather than destroy holiday traditions

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I use one of my girlfriends as my retail trend bellwether. She loves to shop more than anyone I know – and I know some, including myself. She’s typically right in there with the best of them for all the major sales events, with Black Friday traditionally being the highest of High Holidays on her shopping calendar.

I noticed that this year kind of came and went without the usual preparation that starts about a week beforehand: Coupons and sales circulars would typically be laid out on the dining room table like preparations for some great battle strategy; routes would be mapped between stores for the greatest travel efficiency and avoidance of traffic (Routes 17 and 4 are the main arteries to this shopping heart and are subject to snarls on days such as these with N.Y. shoppers infiltrating NJ to avail themselves of the no-tax-on-clothes law), and a provisions bag (water, granola bars, etc.) at the ready for the pre-dawn departure. So usually she’s pretty scarce on Black Fridays – off on her search and destroy mission like a Navy Seal, including leaving the house under the cover of night.

Needless to say I was shocked when she pulled up in front of my house late morning on Black Friday as I was outside doing some last minute raking (leaves & Christmas decor do NOT mix), looking all rested and exuding an uncharacteristically unhurried air about her. I actually didn’t even know who she was at first as she rolled down her car window. You know when you see someone you know really well but they are in a situation totally out of context? Well, this was one of those moments. In my head she was at Walmart slugging it out with the best of them to get a Snuggie or something, and here she was in her car ready for an impromptu chat about exterior Christmas decorations.

Once I recovered from my apoplectic shock, I inquired as to her obvious disregard for her annual ritual. She said she didn’t find it necessary this year. She purchased an iPad over the summer (so she could download the 50 Shades of Grey  trilogy for her vacation beach reading), and it seems she made liberal use of it Thanksgiving night after her parents went home. She discovered that she could cyber-surf much easier than navigate traffic, could shop in her PJs and could actually sleep-in the day after preparing the Thanksgiving feast for some well deserved rest. I could see it on her face – it was like someone had finally turned on the lights. Based on the comps being reported, it seems that most people came to the same conclusion as my friend did.

So that’s online. Then there’s this business of stores opening on Thanksgiving.  From all I read in the trade press during the week following Black Friday, it seemed the majority of retailers found that Thursday night cannibalized Friday morning’s sales numbers, and the net gain over the weekend was predominantly a wash. And I bet once you factor in operating costs for the additional hours, it’s probably a loss for some of these retailers. But they all said the same thing: If the other guy is open, then they needed to be open too. Except for Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, I think they let Thanksgiving remain a holiday.

In my humble opinion: Enough already. There was a tipping point we passed somewhere a long time ago and I think we’re about to fall over. Families don’t talk to each other anymore, they text – while sitting next to each other. We all have so little free time, why ask a portion of us to give up our holidays to work, so another portion of us who don’t have enough common sense to stay home can go shop? If major retailers can align themselves with civil rights groups to develop and adopt a Customer Bill of Rights to prevent racial profiling, and can band together to develop initiatives to improve building safety standards to create safe working conditions in factories in Bangladesh, is there a reason they can’t all make a pact to leave a holiday as a holiday? They can compete all they want online.

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Kathleen Jordan, AIA, CID, LEED AP, is a principal in Gensler’s New York office, and a leader of its retail practice with over 24 years of experience across the United States and internationally. Jordan has led a broad range of retail design projects as both an outside consultant and as an in-house designer. She has led projects from merchandising and design development all the way through construction documentation and administration, and many of her projects have earned national and international design awards. Contact her at kathleen_jordan@gensler.com.

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