Why Do We Still Hit the Stores on Black Friday?
Black Friday is no longer the only day of the holiday shopping season with those incredible “doorbuster’’ deals, but it still draws crowds of bargain hunters who begin lining up even before Thanksgiving is over.
But it’s 2014, and there are as just as many online ways to get great prices as there are by going elbow-to-elbow with shoppers in clogged aisles of local retail stores.
And online shopping continues to grow. Plenty of people will brag in the coming days that they got all their holiday shopping done without leaving their homes.
But countless others will share familiar stories of traffic jams, clogged parking lots, slow-moving check-out lines, out-of-stock items, scuffles among frustrated customers, and all the other problems that accompany post-Thanksgiving shopping excursions.
Why would anyone still put up with all that when it’s no longer necessary? We have a few theories:
Getting those must-have items in-hand:
“I’d rather bring the gifts home with me that day rather than wait and hope that the UPS or US Post Office ever actually delivers the stuff.’’
Jon Bryan, a professor at Bridgewater State University’s School of Business, believes there’s something to be said for possessing the item the instant you buy it.
“Seeing the item, sizing the item, really having that closer relationship with the item is one of the reasons people will continue to go to the brick-and-mortar stores,’’ said Bryan.
Nervousness about online shopping:
“Will an online purchase put me at risk for the next big data breach?’’
It’s a fair question. Major online retailers stress security through the shopping and checkout processes, but it can (still) be daunting to some cyber shoppers to actually type in those credit or debit card numbers over the Internet.
The reality is that cyber security is an issue no matter whether you’re shopping online or in-store. In fact, several major retail data breaches involved credit and debit cards used in retails store purchases, including Target, Home Depot, and Kmart.
“People are leery of electronic transactions of all kinds,’’ said Bryan. “It’s probably not going to get better.’’
Black Friday has become a social event:
“It’s a blast! We can’t wait to hit the mall.’’
Some folks actually enjoy experiencing Black Friday with good friends or family members.
“A lot of people, particularly the younger sets as well as the senior-citizen-age category, go shopping with friends and make a whole day of (Black Friday),’’ said Bryan. “That’s not an experience you can share in the cyber world.’’
Escape:
“After Thanksgiving is over, I need a few hours of alone time.’’
In this case, “alone time’’ involves being surrounded by hundreds of other shoppers.
Better marketing:
“I just love that ‘Alice in Marshmallow Land’ Target commercial.’’
Holiday shopping television commercials (which started pretty much the day after the November elections) run nonstop. Retailers’ newspaper circulars can outweigh the rest of the content in even the fattest Sunday papers. It’s a good bet that Black Friday advertising reaches more sets of eyes than ads for online deals.
Will online shopping ever truly eclipse the brick-and-mortar experience? There seems to be a lot of very good reasons why it should eventually happen, but it’s likely that as long as the deals are dangled before them, there will always be some savvy shoppers who refuse to stop hitting their favorite stores.
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