‘Christmas Creep’ Creeps into Thanksgiving
CompUSA thinks opening from 9PM to midnght on Thanksgiving will generate boffo business:
CompUSA to Reopen on Thanksgiving Night
Thursday November 16, 12:09 AM ESTDALLAS (AP) — The heck with that pumpkin pie, electronics retailer CompUSA is opening its doors on Thanksgiving night to give holiday shoppers a head-start on Black Friday madness.
Most of the chain’s stores plans to open from 9 p.m. until midnight, then send shoppers home for a quick nap before the doors reopen at 5 a.m. on Friday.
“Some customers aren’t interested in waking up at the crack of dawn to go shopping at 5 a.m.,” said Brian Woods, CompUSA Inc.’s executive vice president of merchandising. “We’re giving them more options.”
Woods said he’s not worried about overlapping with Thanksgiving celebrations. He figures that by 9 p.m., most people are done eating turkey and would welcome a shopping trip as their entertainment for the evening.
Last year, CompUSA opened its doors at midnight, and Woods said the crowds outside averaged 600 to 700, and sales were strong. But after the initial rush, he said, traffic thinned out until about 5 a.m., which seems to when consumers expect stores to open on Black Friday. It’s also when rival Best Buy plans to open its stores, a spokesman said.
The chain is of course free to do what it wishes to generate business, but here’s hoping the experiment is a one-time spectacular failure.
I vaguely recall that the old Zayre chain occasionally opened its stores on Thanksgiving evening many years ago. Not that there’s any direct causality, but I’m sure CompUSA would rather not share the fate of that chain, which was bought out by another (Arlen’s was the name, I think) that went out of business.
