As many stores opened earlier than ever, on Thanksgiving Day, for their annual “Black Friday” sales, University of Maryland students and faculty fear that the growing shopping frenzy may prevent people from getting to spend quality time with their friends and families.
Several major retailers including Target, Best Buy, Macy’s and Walmart have announced that would be opening their stores for early shopping deals starting around dinner time on Thanksgiving Day, according to a report by USA Today.
Shoppers pour into Target to take advantage of early opening sales on Thursday, Nov. 28, Thanksgiving Day.
“The earlier times, competitive deals and spike in ‘guaranteed’ products signify retailers pulling out all the stops to bring in more customers,” read the USA Today article.
However, some students and faculty members at UMD said they were concerned about the affect these early openings might have on the holiday.
“I think it’s silly and that it will take away from Thanksgiving as a holiday because people will be out shopping instead of spending time with family,” said sophomore vocal performance major, Caitlin DeLatte.
Sophomore biology major Kelly Devine agreed and said that she didn’t think that stores should be pulling people away from their families.
“I may be biased since I don’t like Black Friday anyway,” said Devine. “I think it’s almost an invasion of capitalism into the home life.”
An article by Daniel Gross from The Daily Beast explained that retailers simply can’t resist offering these early deals. Total retail sales have risen 3.9 percent over the past year and the holiday shopping season has become “a period full of extreme pressure for retailers,” according to Gross.
Analysts predicted that store openings on Thanksgiving would help draw eager shoppers and allow them to secure better deals, despite an overall lower consumer confidence this season, according to the USA Today report.
In fact, Black Friday sales rates actually dropped this year, reported the Washington Times. The National Retail Federation reported that overall sales on Friday were down versus the same day in 2012, though total sales over the four-day weekend period totaled about $57 billion, according to the Times article.
However, retailers relying on Thanksgiving Day early opening and Cyber Monday sales still saw substantial profits. Cyber Monday sales reportedly jumped 20 percent compared to last year and analysts said that lower Friday turnout was likely due in part to heavy Thursday shopping crowds, according to the Washington Times.
College Park Scholars International Studies instructor Carmen Deanna said his family members still get up early each year on Black Friday to “engage in the last remaining American pastime; shopping.” He said he did not participate and was a bit offended by the “commercialization” of the holidays.
Deanna said he did at least get some entertainment out of it, though.
“In that, on the evening corporate news I can view images of citizens competing to spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need, and likely won’t use once they get it home.”