Black Friday 2011: Best Buy CEO 'Feels Terrible' About Employees Working on Thanksgiving
Amazon offering Black Friday sales for those who want to stay at home
Major retailers like Walmart, Target and Best Buy are extending their Black Friday hours by opening up at midnight on Thanksgiving night which will require thousands of employees to cut their Thanksgiving plans short. Best Buy's CEO has expressed some regret about participating in what has come to be known as "Black Midnight."
Brian Dunn, the CEO of Best Buy, told The Wall Street Journal that he had to "make a very difficult decision" when he decided to extend the retail giant's hours. "I feel terrible," Dunn said. "It will change some Thanksgiving plans for our employees. It certainly changes mine."
The biggest shopping day of the year has held off creeping into one of the most important family holidays of the year for quite some time now. However, that is about to change this year with the new operating hours and many shoppers are looking forward to it.
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"I love the advantage, because you don't have to go to sleep and wake up," said Nouchelle Hastings, a financial-talk-radio host and longtime Black Friday shopper, in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel. "Wise people will take advantage of the Targets, the Kohl's and the other stores."
Many shoppers are already making plans to be ready to shop as early as possible.
Sandra Chicaiza told the Sentinel shoppers should be prepared at "11:30, maybe 11, because I'm telling you, they're going to be making some lines."
For shoppers looking to preserve the sanctity of Thanksgiving while still taking advantage of the best deals, it might be worth logging on to Amazon.com after Thanksgiving dessert to take advantage of its ongoing sales that will increase as Black Friday draws nearer.
"We thought we'd get the deals going a little early," Amazon says on its website. "We're counting down to Black Friday Deals Week with, yes, even more deals, all day, every day,...Black Friday sales, Cyber Monday specials, Amazon's best deals – you'll find them right here."
With a variety of special offers over a greater period of time, Amazon is giving consumers more flexible options than brick and mortar stores such as Walmart and Target.
The appeal of getting Black Friday deals while sitting at home at a computer and eating Thanksgiving leftovers as opposed to joining the crushing frenzy of the Black Friday mad dashes appears alluring.
However, to get the best Amazon deals will still take patience and maybe even a little technique. According to DigitalTrends.com, Amazon will be having a series of "Lighting Deals," which will only be available for short periods of time and keep people "crawling back to the site to check out the current discounted items."
