Stores open all weekend for shopping marathons
When her graveyard shift at a medical lab ends, Tonya Ancrum is usually limited to two shopping options: the 24-hour Wal-Mart or Kroger.
But just after 7 a.m. Friday, she walked into Macy’s in search of fragrance and pajamas to give as gifts.
“They’re open, and that’s great,” Ancrum said. “I love the ability to come and shop early while everyone is on their way to work.”
Macy’s normally opens at 10 a.m., but the doors opened at 7 a.m. Friday and will not close until 11:59 p.m. Sunday. The company is one of many extending its hours to stay open for most, if not all, of this busy shopping weekend.
With many retailers still recovering from the recession, more are adding such marathon hours, trying to boost their sales in an age in which online shopping, and its 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week availability, has come to epitomize convenience. Customers, trained to find a discount and increasingly used to shopping at any time, are demanding more access to stores. Nonstop shopping hours aren’t yet the norm, but the expectation is that if it works for some retailers, others may follow.
“No one can afford to sit on the sidelines,” said Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst for NPD Group. “If it’s successful, you’ll see a few more. By the third year, almost all of them will be doing it.”
In addition to Macy’s super-extended hours, Toys R Us stores will stay open for 88 hours straight. Many Target stores have added an extra evening hour through much of December. Metro Atlanta Nordstrom stores are opening an hour or two earlier for the holidays and are staying open an hour or two later. Today and Sunday, JC Penney stores will stay open from 7 a.m. until midnight.
Consumer Reports estimated that, in the five days before Christmas, 68 percent of shoppers still had gifts to get. As many as 17 million people are expected to shop on Christmas Eve.
To open at night — and to stay open — isn’t a big deal for stores that are used to having employees stock shelves through the night, said Daniel Butler, vice president of retail operations for the National Retail Federation. The cost of turning on the lights and staffing the store is minimal compared to the sales and goodwill.
“It sends the message for the customer that we want to help you when you want to be helped,” he said. “I think other retailers are watching. They’ll follow suit next year.”
This is the first year Macy’s has stayed open for 65 hours straight in Atlanta and most other cities. But, in the few locations where the department store tried it in previous years, the result was “extremely successful,” spokeswoman Melissa Goff said. Macy’s extended its hours in 41 places last year, including 14 that were open 24 hours.
Extending hours to match various customer schedules is “pretty much the ultimate customer service,” Goff said.
If she hadn’t been able to stop at Macy’s before work on Friday, Deloris Lansche said she might not have gone shopping at all. Traffic near Perimeter Mall is bad at lunch and after work, Lansche said, and she doesn’t want to have to deal with the other shoppers. Terri Hooks also stopped by the store before work — she had just 20 minutes to find a coat and set of sheets for her son.
By being open for the duration, Cohen said, retailers like Macy’s and Toys R Us remind people that they are holiday shopping destinations, whether they need the extended hours or not.
In some cases, the shoppers are people like Ancrum, who has worked nights for 12 years. In other cases, they’re people who forgot to add someone to a Christmas list, or simply procrastinators who don’t want to face the crowds. Macy’s is slowest between 3 and 5 a.m., Goff said, but sees customers at all hours.
The night hours have been an adjustment for Michael Walker, a seasonal Toys R Us employee who works from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Toys R Us, which has kept similar hours the past two years, opened at 6 a.m. Friday and will not close until 10 p.m. Christmas eve.
Walker gets paid a little bit more than daytime workers for taking the night shift, but said he misses some things about working when other people are around. He’s now sleeping from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Shoppers like Marietta resident Wanda Whitaker didn’t even have a chance to get their morning coffee before rushing to the Lenox Square Toys R Us for its 6 a.m. open. Whitaker was searching for Butterscotch Pony, the only toy her niece’s daughter asked for, and one that was hard to find. She thought she would be the only one in the parking lot when she got there, but Ed Culler and Frank Bell were sitting in their cars waiting for the doors to open. Both were seeking Skylanders Giants, which they expected to fly off the shelves.
Mary Whitfield left her job as a transit research surveyor early to be at Toys R Us for its 6 a.m. opening. The Razor scooter she sought was sold out at other stores, and Whitfield feared if she went home to take a nap after work, it would be gone by the time she got there.
Early hours, she said, were more convenient. They also drew Winston Johnson, a government employee who woke up nearly two hours earlier than normal on his day off to see what was on sale at Macy’s and to use a $10 coupon that expired at 1 p.m.
“It’s almost like Black Friday,” he said. “I have Christmas shopping to do, so why not?”
About the Author
Arielle Kass covers Gwinnett County for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She started at the paper in 2010, and has covered business and local government beats around metro Atlanta. Arielle is a graduate of Emory University.
