Christmas shopping creeps into Thanksgiving Day; US shoppers skip holiday dinner to camp out

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Forget the traditional Thanksgiving holiday dinner. Many in the U.S. chose to get an even earlier jump on Christmas shopping, even if that meant sleeping on the sidewalk outside stores.

The early morning shopping chaos that has become a day-after-Thanksgiving tradition has crept back this year to eat into Thanksgiving Day itself.

What was known as Black Friday — the day when stores traditionally turn a profit for the year — started on Thursday evening in many places.

Target Corp. was opening its doors at 9 p.m. Thursday, three hours earlier than last year. Sears, which didn’t open on Thanksgiving last year, was opening at 8 p.m. Others such as Macy’s Inc. were opening at midnight on Black Friday.

Overall, about 17 per cent of shoppers planned to take advantage of Thanksgiving hours, according to a International Council of Shopping Centers-Goldman Sachs survey of 1,000 consumers.

Michael Prothero, 19, and Kenny Fullenlove, 20, missed Thanksgiving dinner altogether. They started camping out on Monday night outside a Best Buy store in Ohio, which was scheduled to open at midnight.

“Better safe than sorry,” Prothero said.

Americans have grown more comfortable shopping online, which has put pressure on stores, which can make up to 40 per cent of their annual revenue during the two-month holiday shopping season, to compete. That’s becoming more difficult. The National Retail Federation, an industry trade group, estimates that overall sales in November and December will rise 4.1 per cent this year to $586.1 billion, or about flat with last year’s growth. But the online part of that is expected to rise 15 per cent to $68.4 billion, according to Forrester Research.

“Every retailer wants to beat everyone else,” said C. Britt Beemer, chairman of America’s Research Group, a research firm. “Shoppers love it.”

Indeed, there were 11 shoppers in a four-tent encampment outside one Best Buy store in Michigan. A $179 Toshiba LCD television was worth missing Thanksgiving dinner at home.

“We’ll miss the actual being there with family, but we’ll have the rest of the weekend for that,” said Jackie Berg, 26, who arrived Wednesday afternoon.

Some workers were expected to protest the Thanksgiving hours. A New York City-based, union-backed group of retail workers called Retail Action Project planned protests on Thanksgiving in front of several stores, including AnnTaylor, Forever 21 and others that were opening at midnight on Black Friday and earlier.

“It shows that the companies are not valuing their workers. They’re looking to their workers to squeeze out more profits,” said Carrie Gleason, director of Retail Action Project.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, has been one of the biggest targets of protests against holiday hours. Many of the company’s stores are open 24 hours, but the company was offering early bird specials that once were reserved for Black Friday at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving instead.

A union-backed group called OUR Walmart, which includes former and current workers, was staging demonstrations and walkouts at hundreds of stores on Black Friday.

But retailers said they are giving shoppers what they want. Dave Tovar, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said the discounter learned from shoppers that they want to start shopping right after Thanksgiving dinner. Then they want time to sleep before they wake up and head back to the stores.

Kathee Tesija, Target’s executive vice-president of merchandising, said Target’s 9 p.m. opening struck “a perfect balance” for its customers.

“We thought long and hard about when the right opening time would be,” she said, adding that Target “wants to make sure we are competitive.”

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Associated Press writers Anne D’Innocenzio in New York and Tom Krisher in Ann Arbor, Michigan..