Why? Because that is the day of the year when sales should be so strong that retailers move out of the "red" and into the "black" - PROFIT. So now that "Black Friday", at least in the traditional shopping sense, is becoming a thing of the past as competition and a desire to maximize sales has driven opening times all the way into Thursday - could "Black Friday" in the accounting sense also become a thing of the past?
After 20 years of working through Black Fridays, there is still no question that that day still reigns supreme as the largest shopping day of the year, but this year I was finally forced to ask myself , "Are we spending too much to make this happen?" Malls across the country witnessed something that I have never seen in my 20 years - ZERO lines from around 3am until almost 11am. A middle of the night slow down was no surprise to anyone, but the fact that malls were as empty as a Tuesday afternoon in June was a little scary and totally unpredictable. Retailers everywhere were stuck in an extremely overstaffed position while managers were hesitant to cut down hours thinking every little business spurt was the start of the next rush. Being extremely overstaffed while running deep discounts that generate lower margins is never a winning combination!
Naturally, I think the next question is - Where is the sweet spot? Since I participated in my first "Midnight Madness", I thought that was it. All the fluctuations in traffic were relatively predictable and stores were busy. But opening on Thursday has now made me believe that "Black Friday" needs to go back to being on Fri-DAY! People definitely do NOT want to shop in the middle of the night or overly early in the morning, which is why midnight openings seemed to work and logically lead to Thursday night openings. Unfortunately, stores stayed open during the hours customers do not like to shop, which also happens with midnight openings costing stores incredible amounts of unnecessary payroll. It is now my opinion that 5am is the sweet spot. People will get up at that time to scoop up the best deals and Friday will return to a nonstop shopping frenzy. I also believe this will return business to the weekend as traffic and shopping habits balance out. Business coming in vs the cost to do that business can be maximized at every hour = SWEET SPOT!
All weekend I read articles discussing the strong sales retailers were reporting for Friday, only to wake up today to the completely unsurprising headlines that read something like this - "Weekend Sales Lag after Strong Black Friday Showing". In listening to consumers year round, their is a growing frustration that retail is pushing holidays too soon. In all other regards retailers seem to be picking up on the need to make genuine connections with their customers - an easy way to do that, is to let them have the time that is meant for them and their families and in return, they will be loyal and happy to shop with you.
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