Letter: Retailers follow shoppers to what end?
Shoppers fill the halls of the Roosevelt Field Mall as Black Friday shopping begins in Garden City. (Nov. 23, 2012) Credit: Howard Schnapp
Regarding "Opening stores on Thanksgiving" [Letters, Nov. 20], the writer is partially correct that consumer behavior is responsible for retail holiday hours.
Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year not because stores have sales, but because a record number of the employed have the day off. Our free time set off the competition among stores to have more enticing sales, but the truth is we would shop that day regardless.
This is how a holiday gets commercialized: a quirk of common behavior is hijacked for the use of enterprise and the public is coerced to conform to the whims of business. To save money, we are beholden to shop this Black Friday while still digesting our Thanksgiving meal.
I think the National Association of Retailers should come together and define an acceptable schedule before localities decide we need blue law decorum again.
Jon Zipkin, Bay Shore
