Business

Nation's biggest shopping mall decides not to open on Thanksgiving

Mall of America to close on Thanksgiving

In the last several years, many big-box stores and department stores have moved back their Black Friday openings with big doorbuster sales into Thanksgiving night in a fierce battle for consumers' holiday spending.

The Mall of America is pushing back against the recent trend of Thanksgiving Day shopping by deciding to stay closed on the holiday this year.

"We've been talking about this for months, looking at the numbers, looking at the pros and the cons", Jill Renslow, a mall executive involved with the decision, told the paper.

But this year the shopping center is bucking that trend, telling mall employees to spend Thanksgiving with their families, according to the AP. The change will affect about 1,200 people who work directly for the mall, and it could impact the 13,000 people who work for stores that are tenants in the mall. If some stores do open, the mall will provide security to those stores, according to the Star Tribune.

The Bloomington, Minnesota megamall has been open on Thanksgiving Day since 2012.

While the mall will remain closed, some of the 520 stores may opt to open on Thanksgiving.

Still, opening earlier and earlier can have some benefits: J.C. Penney credited its 3 p.m. opening on Thanksgiving past year, an hour before Macy's (and three earlier than in 2014), for its strong quarter. And past year, for the first time, more shoppers went online than to stores, mitigating the benefit to being open for so many hours. Hopefully, with Mall of America making this decision, other stores and malls will choose to follow suit.

Mall management said that they want to put the emphasis of the weekend on Black Friday, when more than 400,000 people will likely descend upon the area looking for deals.

stayontheblack.com

Nation's biggest shopping mall decides not to open on Thanksgiving