Macy’s will open most of its stores on the US Thanksgiving Day holiday for the first time in its history, in a sign of how competitive the holiday season is shaping up to be.
The chain will open the doors at most of its 800 namesake department stores, at 8pm on Thursday, November 28. The company said on Monday that the shift was voluntary for workers and that the move was “consistent” with what many rivals are doing.
The name of the company, which has sponsored New York’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade since 1924, is virtually synonymous with the holiday.
Traditionally, retailers have waited until Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, to start their big end-of-the-year push for sales.
US retailers have extended their Black Friday hours every year in recent years to get a jump on the sales events that kick off the holiday season, when they earn more than a third of their annual sales.
Many retailers, including Macy’s, reported disappointing second-quarter sales, pressuring them to try to make up those sales during the holiday season.
Macy’s opened most of its stores at midnight in 2011 and last year to kick off the Black Friday sales after opening later in the morning in prior years. But some of its rivals have opened earlier and earlier.