Reschedule your turkey day Target run, because it’s not happening this year — or ever again
We usually consider Target being closed a very bad thing, but in this one case, it’s a good thing, and for a couple of different reasons. Our favorite big box store announced on Monday that it’s staying home for Thanksgiving — and that it will never again open its doors for the holiday in the future, either.
“What started as a temporary measure driven by the pandemic is now our new standard — one that recognizes our ability to deliver on our guests’ holiday wishes both within and well beyond store hours,” Target CEO Brian Cornell wrote in a note to employees explaining the change.
We like this idea, even if it means that we can’t waddle past those weird big red balls directly after our Thanksgiving feast and start immediately consuming goods for the holidays.
This is one of those pandemic changes that seems to be an all-around good idea to keep permanently. Target was closed last year for Thanksgiving because of COVID-19, and the store discovered that not only did the closure fail to impact holiday shopping, it was also better for employees, who would rather have the day off like everybody else than deal with hoards of tryptophan-crazed holiday deal-seekers.
Target has often gotten issues like this right — they also do a great job with inclusion and pandemic safety.
Of course, don’t think that Target is totally doing this out of the goodness of their hearts — it makes fine business sense, too. Shoppers have been making holiday purchases earlier in the past few years, and especially this year with the knowledge that supply chain issues could affect gift-buying. When people shop earlier, it makes it much easier on the stores during the holiday season when it comes to staffing and keeping products on the shelf during the November and December crunch. Online shopping has also changed the landscape of holiday shopping — in some ways for the better and in some for the worse (and yes, true addicts can virtually shop at Target to their heart’s desire on November 25). Last year, for example, Thanksgiving was the third largest online shopping day of the year.
Other big box stores, like Walmart and Best Buy, also shut their doors on Thanksgiving last year and have announced the same plan for this year — but they haven’t committed to permanently saying no to shopping on turkey day. Still other big stores, like Costco and REI, have always stayed closed on Thanksgiving for the benefit of their employees, and they should get a shoutout here for sure.
Target will reopen its doors bright and early at 7 a.m. on Black Friday as usual, for the deal-loving retail freaks among us. But many of the store’s Black Friday deals already started in October and ramped up starting last weekend. Many other stores have also followed the trend of earlier and earlier holiday deals — not unlike how your neighbor put up Christmas lights the morning after Halloween this year. We need something to get us through.
And don’t worry — other major retailers, like grocery store chains, will be open on Thanksgiving, for when you inevitably run out of something.
