When people think of Black Friday, they often envision the violent fights and mad dashes made by angry shoppers at the crack of
dawn, just to get their hands on a 50% off flat-screen or a brand-new Cabbage Patch Kid. But in recent years, the number
of shoppers showing up for in-person Black Friday sales has decreased heavily, as shoppers begin to shift their focus to Cyber Monday and online sales. Brooke Adams, the Prestige Lead of Macy’s Easton Town Center, has been able to see the change in Black Friday attendance over the years.
“The thing is, I feel like nowadays, people prefer to online shop. They’ll see, like flash sales. They’ll also see they don’t have to, not to be funny, but some people don’t like to interact. You know what I’m saying? It’s instant for them just to click a few buttons,” Adams said.
As the ability to shop online becomes more accessible, people become less interested in having to wake up early and stand in lines all day, and more interested in sitting down with some leftovers and hitting add to cart over and over. The stress involved with Black Friday is something people do not want to deal with either. Because of this, it has become more common for shops to have week-long sales online during Thanksgiving week, taking away any sense of stress or urgency that would force people to choose on the spot.
During an in-person sale, there is only a short amount of time to consider whether something is worth buying, whereas, with online shopping, the items can be put in a cart and forgotten about for a week and still be on sale later. The stress that surrounds Black Friday eventually became one of the key reasons
for the drop in its attendance. April Miller, the ambassador for Michael Kors, works at Macy’s and was able to give some insight into what Black Friday used to look like in the past.
“…they would try to steal your carts. Like if you walked by with a flatbed, they would try to take those things from you. So you couldn’t leave anything unattended because they would just take it and load it up with stuff,” Miller said.
This aggression created amidst the tension and pressure already present at Black Friday events has turned a lot of big shoppers off of Black Friday shopping and onto a stress-free Cyber Monday. This has created an opportunity for businesses to pivot their practices into a model that is not only more comfortable for their consumers but also more controllable for their business
model. Eva Frustaci, Business Education teacher at UAHS, believes the issue has to do with spacing.
“The thing is, when you have a regular store versus an e-commerce outlet for the same store, you’re gonna have more options online, because they can’t hold on to all that inventory within their square footage. So, instead of maybe 20 options, you might have 100 options over here, because they don’t have to put those on that retail front where they can store them at a cheaper location,” Frustaci said.
It’s common for people to stop into stores to pick up their online orders or issue some returns, but because online shopping has so many options compared to physical stores along with the comfort factor involved, consumers no longer have any reason to do their holiday shopping at in-person stores.
Miller even remarked on how the sales are different.
“The only thing really worth getting on Black Friday is those cheaper doorbusters and I don’t really think it’s really worth the money,” Miller said. “It’s better deals on Cyber Monday and in fact one of our sales the week before Black Friday is our best sale all year.”