Caught in the Black Friday Ethical Crossfire
A conflicted family man and competitive businessman fights to do the right thing this Black Friday
Everyone is full of turkey, stuffing, gravy, and potatoes. I even tried, unsuccessfully, to convince the family to eat some hummus and veggies to offset the gluttony. It’s 6pm, the night of Thanksgiving, the American tradition always regarded as a family holiday of thanks.
It’s hard to remember this however, because the conversation quickly shifts to what is on sale for Black Friday. The newspaper comes out, the single day per year that we still go out and buy a newspaper. No one cares that there is a wholesome story of the front cover about a family overcoming triumph, we cut right to the guts… the ads.
While my family fights over who gets to see the Best Buy ad first, I quietly grab my macbook and open up the clamshell and log into the server for the e-commerce company I run. I check the time and see that in only 1 hour, our email is scheduled to be sent out to hundreds of thousands of people. The email announces “Early Black Friday” specials, rock bottom prices, free hoodies, waterbottles, and more.
My attention is turned back to my family since an argument has begun. “We are missing all of these deals, Best Buy opened at 6pm for Black Friday, Target opened at 5pm, Sports Authority opened at 4pm, we are already missing it!”
Now the ethical question is brought into play, “these companies are tearing us away from our families on Thanksgiving”, “Do they not have a soul, they want to max out our credit cards early?”
I chime in and agree, “don’t go buy anything from these companies, don’t support their new tradition of moving Black Friday to Thanksgiving”, I argue. “Let us have a whole day of peace before the onslaught of Christmas begins”.
“Wait, Alex… What are you doing?”
“Umm… I have to work, we are opening early for Black Friday this year, in less than an hour. I have to get some work done to make sure this goes smoothly”.
I must admit, I wasn’t forced from some high and mighty corporate setting to open early on Black Friday. I run the company and it was mainly my choice and my advice that led the charge in the last partner meeting to start Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving evening. In one breath I sound so opposed to the idea of splitting up the family, even as far as ask you all to boycott making purchases on Thanksgiving while waiting until actual Black Friday, yet in the next breath it was my choice to do exactly the thing that I claim I am directly opposed to.
Am I a hypocrite, a liar, a thief?
You might call me one or all of those, but from the perspective of someone put into this situation, please allow me a moment to explain to the world my point of view, why this is happening, and what my suggestion is for the years going forward.
Allow me to reiterate, I am conflicted. Part of me hates the companies that are promoting Black Friday as early as Thanksgiving evening and afternoon, while the other part of me is promoting it and I am in fact one of those evil people that I claim to hate. Allow me to quickly explain why its a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation, but keep in mind that I have a solution on how it CAN be stopped.
Argument for the Family Man
Thanksgiving is a precious holiday. It is a moment for us to take a step back from the world, and think about what we are grateful for. Having gratitude in general will greatly improve our quality of life. For someone as busy as me, it’s a moment to pause the rest of the world. I don’t usually get emails from other companies or work collegues. The text messages stop, the emails, the instant messages, and the status updates all cease for this one day, and I can enjoy a moment of peace from the normal stresses of my job.
On Thanksgiving we can breathe, we can enjoy the company of friends, and enjoy the company of family. In a world filled with anxiety and millions of constantly evolving to-do tasks, its a moment to put it all on pause. Just 24 hours, think about what we are grateful for and then dive into the next days and weeks with a renewed vigor.
We haven’t even finished digesting the turkey, there are still gravy stains on the tablecloth, and society is pushing us to start thinking about Christmas! This fundamentally bothers me.
Enjoy the time with your family. Finish the day. Don’t go to the store, because that not only takes you away from those precious moments at home that we always take for granted, but it also forces other people to work at the stores that you want to go to, taking them away from their own families and Thanksgiving experiences.
The Argument for the Businessman
Black Friday is the most competitive day of the year. In my business, we make nearly an entire month’s worth of sales, in a single 24 hour period. When you combine that with the weekend after Black Friday and add in Cyber Monday (the monday after thanksgiving) we are looking at sales figures equivalent to 2.5 — 3 months worth of sales for this single long weekend.
You might think, oh you greedy man!
Hold on! This money doesn’t go into my pocket. So stop the riots right there. My job is to make sure that the company maximizes its revenue. If it is later discovered that there was a month’s worth of extra sales waiting to be made, and I decided to skip over it, I would surely be out of a job. My awareness to these events and figures is exactly why I am hired. Also remember, that this money goes to pay for salaries of new people, new jobs that lower unemployment and help your family and friends. In the case of the company in question, a portion of the money also goes to under-developed third world countries. The point is… it’s not all bad.
Within my industry, the news got out early this year that Black Friday would be happening on Thanksgiving evening. The big players are all doing it (Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc.). When the big players do it, the small players must also follow suite. That puts my company into a difficult situation. If all the fame of Black Friday is happening 12 hours sooner now, and all the shoppers will be back in bed and exhausted by the time the old Black Friday hours come around.The shoppers will have maxed out their credit cards, and will have already found many of the gifts of their list; I would lose out on a huge oppourtunity. All of the stores are in this together, if Walmart opens earlier, then Best Buy has to, and so does Target, and that trickles down all the way to my shop.
Playing by the new rules keeps my company running, playing by the old ones would leave us not meeting our goals.
Like I said, I am a conflicted man. I personally wish that Black Friday would stay Black Friday. Leave Thanksgiving alone, let families enjoy it, and companies should not interfere with it.
But I have an unfortunate truth for you. As long as people keep buying, companies will keep supplying. If you want Best Buy to let their employees spend more time with their families, then don’t go to the store on Thanksgiving. If you want me to be able to let my employees have Thanksgiving off, then don’t shop at the big shops, because that trickles down to me also. When one shop opens earlier, we all have to play ball or that company will have an unfair advantage over the rest of us. It’s competition, simple as that.
Business follows the incredibly simple concept taught in Chapter 1 of Economics 101: Supply and Demand.
We need to stop shopping on Black Friday. All of you have control over the demand, by not going into shops on Thanksgiving and waiting until the day after, you are eliminating the demand on Thanksgiving. When you eliminate the demand, then all of the stores will stop providing a supply until a time when the demand is sufficient to justify the opportunity costs of being open.
You are in control of when we work.
Honestly, I was hoping more than anything that our sales would be horrible on Thanksgiving and they would pick up the day after. I hoped and prayed that it would happen because that means that next year I won’t have to spend Thanksgiving on my computer, but instead with my family. I also wouldn’t have to tear my other employees away from their own families, everyone would win.
But you know what happened?
I had to get rid of the numbers for obvious reasons. But to put it in perspective, look at the amount of orders at 6:00pm (far left). This would be equivalent to a VERY busy hour for us on a standard day. That number on a normal sales graph would be as high as the high peak around 9pm on this graph (graph scale is relative to sales).
We opened at 7:00pm on Thanksgiving, and we hit last year’s Black Friday numbers within the first 4 hours. That type of success means only one thing…
Next Year we open even 6 hours earlier…
