This year, Kmart is sticking with its dubious tradition and opening on Thanksgiving Day. Like last year, they’re opening at 6 A.M., and will keep the doors open for 42 consecutive hours until midnight on Saturday. Maybe if they keep the doors open for that long, someone will wander in.
According to a Sears Holdings press release, Kmart has opened its doors on Thanksgiving morning to Black Friday “early birds” for the last 22 years. Kmart’s sibling retailer Sears, meanwhile, is exercising restraint and good judgement in comparison, waiting twelve more hours to open up. It will stay open for only 30 consecutive hours, from 6 P.M. on Thanksgiving Day until the end of the day on Friday.
“This holiday season is all about giving more to our members and because many like to start shopping well before Black Friday, we’re excited to open our doors early on Thanksgiving and offer other early access opportunities for them to shop and save,” Sears Holdings Senior VP Leena Munjal is quoted saying. The company’s continued insistence on calling its shoppers “members” as if signing up for a rewards program confers special status is irritating, but Sears is actually doing something dangerous by opening up those “opportunities to shop and save” early. By “early,” they mean that Sears stores will begin offering a selection of Black Friday deals as part of its Friends & Family sale the evening of Sunday, November 9th. Yes, that’s this weekend. Yes, that’s two and a half weeks before Thanksgiving.
This kind of nonsense risks retail fatigue. At minimum, retailers marketing to extreme early birds at least risk the sort of backlash against Christmas Creep and the kickoff of holiday shopping in October that our ex-sister site Jezebel published today, pleading for marketers to maybe give us a break between Halloween and Christmas, instead of two full months of Santas and garlands.
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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