Black Friday Creep Turning Off Shoppers Who Would Rather Spend Thanksgiving With Family
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Millions of Americans will spend Thanksgiving evening shopping in a trend that's been growing for years, but could also be turning shoppers off.
No matter your holiday shopping strategy, deep discounts during Black Friday that creep into Thanksgiving have retailers tempting shoppers with a stretched holiday season.
"The retailers are hoping to actually capture more different groups of people, rather than just the crush of people that would come in for the one day," said Drexel University finance professor Sally Hamilton.
Shopper Mae West is disappointed with the trend of cutting deeper into Thanksgiving.
"I think it just takes away from family," she said. "I think that most people would find those same things the next day or the next week."
But others, like Steve Buenviaje say if the deal is good enough, he'd leave the turkey table to go shop.
"People eat, and then they want to go do something," he said. "I don't think they want to stay at home and just veg out."
The polarizing issue has some stores coming out to announces they are closed on Thanksgiving.
But does it help the bottom line for those stores that are open on Thanksgiving?
"It wasn't quite as successful as they hoped it would be last year because of the backlash," Hamilton said. "What's been happening is it's increased foot traffic. And yes, that has translated to some increase in sales, but not as much as the growth in online sales has done."
So a lot of people are heading out to the showroom, where they look in stores at items then buy them online at a lower price later.
The National Retail Federation estimates more than 25 million Americans would shop in-store or online on Thanksgiving.