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While Christmas will come to stores this year, 2020 may be the year without Black Friday. The coronavirus pandemic potentially killed the culture of explosive retail sales on the Friday after Thanksgiving that retained its cultural significance even as the overall importance for the store’s monetary fitness faded.
If corporations need the year, they have to make up for the time and money they lost as a result of the close this spring. Christmas sales are expected to start this year earlier than ever.
However, the genuine blow to the classic start to the holiday shopping season will be the regulation of social estrangement and store capacity constraints, meaning we’ve noticed the last of the scrums that trample crowds that Black Friday sales cause. have come to represent
This year, Christmas sales appear to begin in October. While some stores have already tried to make the sales season back to school in September, it never took off. This year may be different.
Target (NYSE: TGT) recently announced that it will release its Christmas sales in October and expand them in the season. “Historically, looking for deals and buying groceries for the holidays can mean crowded events, and this is not a year for crowds,” he said in a blog post.
Jeff Gennette, CEO of Macy’s (NYSE: M), told analysts: “But when you think about a Black Friday, if you think about the 10 days before Christmas, what does it mean in terms of traffic if other people are nervous to collect? with the crowd? He predicts that the real wave will come after Halloween.
Still, stores will face the added challenge of seeing Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) move their annual Prime Day sales extravaganza in October. Because it has been outperformed by demand for non-public protective devices and products, the e-commerce giant has tentatively scheduled the first week of October for launch.
The pandemic is also pushing stores to leave the opening on Thanksgiving. Although this trend began a few years ago, after a peculiarity in the calendar that meant there were six fewer days of shopping between Black Friday and Christmas, the stores maintained this practice as it helped the sales of juices.
While there may be an argument for doing so this year, stores say the Thanksgiving holiday will remain closed this year to restrict crowds. Walmart (NYSE: WMT) said it would have a normal schedule wednesday before Thanksgiving, close the vacation and then resume general time on Black Friday.
Best Buy said it would also do it on Thanksgiving, as would Dick’s Sporting Goods, Kohl’s and Target.
In fact, the cultural weight of Black Friday can be too hard to ignore, so in in-store sales, we can see crowds migrating online.
Last year, a record 190 million other people made online purchases over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend through Cyber Monday, according to the National Federation of Retailers, about 14% more than in 2018. Most importantly, they spent 16% more cash online. spending an average of about $362 each, at the $313 they spent last year.
It should be noted that last year was also the first time Black Friday surpassed Cyber Monday as the busiest day for e-commerce, with 93 million people buying groceries online on Thursday, compared to 84 million who made online shopping the following Monday.
Retailers can take a look at e-commerce this year, pushing more of their consumers to make a stop at their stores’ internet sites, which they would possibly have already planned to do anyway.
In a way, the retail sector is more prepared for the online attack this year, as online orders and street pickup have become a necessity in the pandemic. As Macy’s Gennette said, “street pickup will be a great secret weapon for us this holiday season we didn’t have the last holiday season.”
On Black Friday, as we knew, it would possibly have gone off smart due to COVID-19, however, retail outlets can stay alive online as the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season.