The wake of Black Friday: what are the best practices?

The movement of the beginning of the holiday shopping season from Black Friday to Thanksgiving Day has driven a vicious wedge between enthusiastic consumers, retailers, staunch holiday traditionalists and workers. The wishes of each of these groups have been at odds with each other, resulting in protests, strikes, stampedes, fighting and other atrocities that come with shopping on Thanksgiving. Rather than attempting to stop the madness by prohibiting Thanksgiving shopping altogether or taking the problematic, purely capitalist solution, workers, bargain-hunters and those who wish to hold Thanksgiving sacred should attempt a solution that rests on middle ground. Retailers who wish to open on Thanksgiving should be allowed to do so, make Thanksgiving shifts volunteer-based rather than compulsory and incentivize workers to work special holiday hours with increased wages.

With stores offering increasingly attractive Black Friday specials, consumers have shopped on Black Friday in larger and larger numbers over the years. In 2013, 38 percent of American consumers aged 18 and older said they planned on holiday shopping on Thanksgiving. This figure climbed to 45 percent in 2014. Although these numbers represent a minority of American consumers, they represent a fervent minority—in order to score low prices on big-ticket items, shoppers will wait outside for hours before an opening or camp outside stores in order to be first in line. Two women even plan to camp out for 22 days in front of a California Best Buy in order to purchase a deeply-discounted television on this Thanksgiving night.

And, unfortunately, some shoppers even resort to violence—in 2011, one woman injured other shoppers with pepper spray in a brawl for discounted video games, and in 2008, a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death by a stampede of eager shoppers.

Considering that there exists a contingent of consumers who will go to such extreme measures to shop on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, any legal or corporate effort to close stores on Thanksgiving would be futile. In short, shoppers don’t camp out all night because stores open on Thanksgiving, stores open on Thanksgiving because shoppers are willing to camp out. As Sandy Kennedy, president of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, puts it, “Consumers, not retailers, determine when the holiday shopping season begins.” As the two women in California demonstrate, shoppers will do what they must to score holiday shopping deals.

Evidence instead shows that stores opening on Thanksgiving would prevent violence on Black Friday itself. Moving store opening times to Thanksgiving night essentially “out-prices” some shoppers from going shopping—in other words, shoppers find family time more valuable than discounted goods and therefore celebrate at home instead of shopping. This leaves only the most devoted of shoppers to go out on Thanksgiving night, thus thinning crowds on Black Friday and lessening the likelihood of violence occurring from competitive shoppers. Illustratively, in the 2008 incident that resulted in the Wal-Mart worker’s death, Wal-Mart scheduled to open at 5 AM on Black Friday—essentially priming itself for a disaster.

Opening on Thanksgiving would make work over the holiday weekend safer not only for shoppers but also for the store’s workers. Understandably so, many workers are upset about being compelled to work on Thanksgiving, a day so long reserved for time to rest and celebrate with family and friends. Many workers have gone on strike in recent years to protest working on Thanksgiving—in 2012, workers at Walmart went on strike, and in 2013, New Jersey Walmart worker Anthony Rivera was one of many retail workers to make a petition against Thanksgiving shifts.

However loud the voices of those against Thanksgiving shifts are, enough workers have reported to work on Thanksgiving and Black Friday to keep businesses open and serving their customers. The motivation of those who work on Thanksgiving mirrors the sentiments of Thanksgiving shoppers who are brave enough to take all means necessary to get the best deals—although they represent a small fraction of the greater population of workers or shoppers, their desire to work or consume is felt and met. Retailers should adopt a system of incentivized shift volunteering in order to ensure that workers who are willing to work on Thanksgiving get to do so, and those who wish to stay home will be able to spend time with their loved ones. Macy’s has adopted one such system—the company pays workers overtime for any shift beginning on Thanksgiving. The system has been effective—over 90 percent of Thanksgiving shifts have been filled by regular workers who volunteered to do so. All retailers should adopt this strategy so that willing workers can earn money, workers who wish to stay home can celebrate Thanksgiving with their family and shoppers who wish to deal hunt can do so.

By operating on a system of incentivized volunteering for shifts on Thanksgiving Day, retailers can avoid the potentially dangerous frenzy of shoppers and ensure that workers who wish to stay home with their families can do so. USA Today reports that 87 percent of shoppers say that they will not participate in Thanksgiving shopping. By operating of this proposed system, retailers can satisfy the 13 percent that will, as well as give workers an opportunity for increased pay.