Target Will Permanently Close Stores On Thanksgiving

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Target will no longer open its stores on Thanksgiving Day, the Associated Press reports.

The Minneapolis-based chain is permanently extending practices started during the pandemic designed to limit overcrowding. Instead of promoting a frenzied Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales weekend, the store began some holiday promotions as early as October. The expanded promotional season appears to have paid off: U.S. holidays sales rose 8.2% in 2020 from the previous year, according to the National Retail Federation.

"What started as a temporary measure driven by the pandemic is now our new standard — one that recognizes our ability to deliver on our guests' holiday wishes both within and well beyond store hours," Target CEO Brian Cornell wrote in a note to employees.

Target began opening on Thanksgiving about a decade ago in order to compete with Amazon and other online retailers, the AP reports. But the shift did not work out quite as the retailer had hoped: not only did Thursday hours dampen Black Friday sales, critics complained that employees now needed to work on a holiday that is supposed to be spent with friends and family.

Many American chains, like Costco, Nordstrom, Home Depot, and Best Buy do not open on Thanksgiving. In 2016, Minneapolis’ famed Mall of America began closing its doors for good on the holiday. Still, many others, like CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens, and most major supermarkets, remain open, albeit with altered hours.

Thanksgiving does not even place among the top ten days of the year for in-person sales, according to the AP. However, it remains the third most popular day for online sales. Last year, Thanksgiving Thursday came in just behind Cyber Monday and Black Friday for online sales, according to the Adobe Digital Economy Index.