Best Buy Follows Big Box Herd; Will Close On Thanksgiving
Big box retailers are like sheep, when one makes a move, they all follow. I would also lump car makers in there too. Back in the 50s, GM added tail fins to their cars and soon every Chrysler and Ford product had them too. Must be the fear of missing out, the optics would be bad for the last one to the party and by then the trend would be moving to the next new thing.
That said, Best Buy is the latest big boxer to announce they will be closed on Thanksgiving day. They do want you to know that they will still be available for online and mobile shopping because the internet never takes a day off.
This trend of opening on Thanksgiving started much the same way as the move to close, big boxers were trying to one-up each other and get consumers to 'consume' sooner and get a jump on the holiday season shopping rush.
Recently, Walmart, Target, and Dick's Sporting Goods have announced they will be closed on Thanksgiving.
Remember when it was just expected that retailers would be closed on Thanksgiving? Why we ever got away from that is anyone's guess. Maybe the lure of the 'almighty dollar' was enough to pull people away from families to work. Sure, most of these companies would pay holiday pay, but what happened to taking a break for just one day?
What the reason for closing? Oddly enough, it's not entirely blamed on COVID-19. According to Dakota News Now, it's to relieve "a source of tension between retailers and labor advocates."
I congratulate these big boxers for coming back to their senses and choosing to close their stores on Thanksgiving and I bet most of their employees do too.