We’re still nearly two months out from Thanksgiving, but already 64 retail chains have confirmed their plans to stay closed during the holiday.
Resuming the annual remain-open-or-stay-closed debate, the lads at BestBlackFriday.com reached out to leading national and regional chains, and were surprised by the response.
“We have never had this many confirmations in early October,” noted co-principal Phil Dengler, half of the Jones-Dengler Marketing team behind the Black Friday research site. “And we are expecting the list to grow to over 100.”
Within the tech neck of the woods, stay-at-home stores will include Abt Electronics, AT&T carrier stores, BJ’s, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe’s, P.C. Richard & Son, Sam’s Club, Sprint carrier stores, and Staples, which have traditionally given employees the day off.
Indeed, that’s the most common explanation offered to Jones-Dengler, “To give employees and customers time to enjoy the holiday with family and friends,” Dengler said.
The sentiment was further confirmed in a statement by Costco: “As an appreciation of all the hard work our employees do over the course of the year, we have always closed on Thanksgiving to give our employees a chance to relax and enjoy time with their families.”
Echoed Micro Center, the regional IT specialty chain, “Our associates work hard every day, and we strongly believe that they deserve the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with their families.”
Related: P.C. Richard To Retailers: Stop Ruining Thanksgiving
Granted, some retail locations must stay closed, under Thanksgiving Blue Laws in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine, while some shopping mall owners insist their lessees remain open. But if the customer is always right, then storefronts should be closed on the holiday: a recent BestBlackFriday survey shows that 48 percent of Americans dislike turkey-day openings, while only a quarter favor them and the rest are indifferent.
But thanks to the around-the-clock nature of e-commerce, most retailers will be open for business in some manner anyway, making the whole Thanksgiving Day debate kinda moot.
Regardless, here’s the full list of sorry-we’re-closed stores, as of this morning:
A.C. Moore
Abt Electronics
Academy Sports + Outdoors
Ace Hardware
Acme Tools
Allen Edmonds
American Girl
At Home
AT&T (Company-Owned Stores)
Barnes & Noble
Big 5 Sporting Goods
BJ’s Wholesale Club
Blain’s Farm & Fleet
Bob’s Discount Furniture
Burlington
Christopher & Banks
Cost Plus World Market
Costco
Craft Warehouse
Crate and Barrel
Dillard’s
dressbarn (majority of stores)
Fleet Farm
Gardner-White Furniture
Guitar Center
H&M
Half Price Books
Harbor Freight Tools
Hobby Lobby
Home Depot
HomeGoods
Homesense
IKEA
JOANN Stores
Lowe’s
Marshalls
Mattress Firm
Micro Center
Music & Arts
Nordstrom
Nordstrom Rack
Office Depot & OfficeMax
P.C. Richard & Son
Patagonia
Pep Boys
Petco
PetSmart
Pier 1 Imports
Publix
Raymour & Flanigan Furniture | Mattresses
REI
Sam’s Club
Sierra Trading Post
Sportsman’s Warehouse
Sprint (Retail Stores Closed Unless Mall Dictates Otherwise; Mall Kiosks May Open)
Staples
Stein Mart
Sur La Table
The Container Store
The Paper Store
TJ Maxx
Tractor Supply Co.
Trollbeads
Von Maur
West Marine
