Does early start to Black Friday shopping equal more profits?
LA CROSSE, WI (WKBT) — Black Friday is no longer the only day to get out for those holiday door-buster deals.
More and more businesses are opening their doors on Thanksgiving evening, providing customers with two days of deals.
But do the extra hours mean more profit for businesses or just more options for customers?
There’s a whole list of stores that are opening on Thanksgiving this year to kick of the Black Friday shopping frenzy early.
22979252Valley View Mall will open it’s doors at 8 in the evening and many other businesses are following suit.
But it’s yet to be seen if the extra hours will really mean extra profits.
Back Friday has long since held the record for the biggest shopping day of the year.
“The next four weeks are 20 percent of our sales, so Black Friday is an important day for that,” said Shopko manager Heidi Stauder.
“See what’s on sale and what you want to get, and then we figure it out. We write down where we want to go and what we want to look at,” said Winona woman Nancy Patten.
For shoppers like Patten, Friday isn’t the only day to plan for.
“We go out on Thanksgiving too, if we find something we really want, you know,” said Patten.
She’s not the only one — the National Retail Federation says as the number of stores opening on Thanksgiving increases, so does the number of people shopping off their turkey.
Last year, the number of people shopping on Thanksgiving hit 35 million.
But it doesn’t necessarily mean stores will rake in extra dough just because there’s more time to shop.
“It just opened it up for customers to shop a little earlier; the sales were close. We’ve always had a goal in mind,” said Stauder.
“I’m not aware of any evidence that expanded shopping hours leads to more consumer shopping or holiday spending,” said UW-La Crosse economics professor James Murray.
Murray says there are a host of other factors that determine how deep people are willing to dig into their pockets.
“Your income, your expectation for future income, what you think about your job security, your stock-up savings — these are things that influence your spending decisions,” said Murray.
But for shoppers like Patten, the extra hours mean an extra-big dent in her wallet.
“For me it will probably mean extra spending, but for my daughter, she has a set budget, so we equal each other out,” said Patten.
The National Retail Federation also shows that Thanksgiving Day shopping is especially popular among millennials.
On Thanksgiving Day, 36 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 34 shopped — the highest of any age group.
