“Black Friday could not be contained to a mere 24 hours. It is Consumerism. It wants more. It always wants more. Nothing is sacred to it; nothing is valuable. So, now, Black Friday has eaten Thanksgiving alive,” writes Matt Walsh in a recent Huffington Post op-ed.
As business reporter Katherine Sayre puts it, “Gray Thursday is the new Black Friday.”
The Arms Race
Large retail chains compete to be the first to open--a race driven by the theory that stores with the earliest start time capture the most buyers and make the most sales.