New Holidays For New Generations

Forget Black Friday, what about Thirsty Thursday?

Thirsty for shopping deals of course.

You’ll have to recover from your Turkey coma a little early this year as retailers around the nation are opening their doors early this Thanksgiving for shoppers. Kohl’s and JCP opens at 8pm. Walmart at 6pm. Kmart opens at 6am!

While this trend reflects both the desperate race for first dibs on shoppers, it also represents a much more interesting trend: the rise of the young shopper. This quote from My San Antonio sums it up well:

More than 36 percent of consumers between ages 18 and 34 told the National Retail Federation that they shopped on Thanksgiving Day last year, the highest of any age group and about 10 percentage points greater than the average for all adults.

CNBC recently covered this same topic, revealing that retailers actually plan to stagger their deals throughout the night to appeal toward the different groups of people who shop at these various times. Without family dinners to cling to, young shoppers embrace the new discounts driven towards them. This offline trend comes at the heels of surging popularity with Cyber Monday, which has seen a 30% sales increase in the past year alone. An entirely new generation of customers is taking a crash course in consumerism, thanks to increasingly intelligent strategies by retailers.

Monitor Thanksgiving week and Cyber Monday sales this year to see if the trend continues. If you thought the Christmas season was long, imagine other holidays such as Thanksgiving also getting stretched to two week periods as well.

This optimized, new-era consumerism-centric holiday expands beyond just Thanksgiving and even the United States. China recently celebrated national Single’s Day to the tune of $5 billion in sales. To compare, that eclipsed both Cyber Monday and Thanksgiving—combined. Spearheaded by young shoppers, this trend of consumer “megaholidays” has become an intriguing and intricately interwoven thread to the fabric of modern day society.

In an era of flash deals, Groupons, and online purchases, retailers are learning our habits and changing their offerings to meet them. They’re even changing holidays. As these rampant purchases increase, I’m sure many ethical debates will rise regarding expectations, perceptions, and meaning behind this change in culture. As for now though…I’m waiting to buy that $98 flatscreen TV at Walmart. Still remember when those suckers sold for $1000. Damn, they got me as well.