feStaples Kicks Off Brown Thursday Announcements: Will Close On Thanksgiving

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Over the last few years, a growing trend for retailers has been to open up on Thanksgiving Day, sometimes at an obscenely early hour. Maybe that isn’t working out so well for them after all: one retailer that has opened on Gray Thursday for the last few years has decided to close up and let its workers spend the holiday at home.

In a press release touting its online deals that will start on Thursday, the chain announced that the deals will only be online, and the stores will stay closed. ”

“On Thanksgiving Day, customers can shop from home on Staples.com and then continue their shopping in stores starting at 6 a.m. on Black Friday,” the company’s president of North American stores and online shopping, Demos Parneros, said in a statement.

When it has opened on Thanksgiving Day, Staples has at least limited its hours, opening at 9 P.M. in 2013 and 6 P.M. to 10 P.M. in 2014.

Companies choosing to stay closed on the holiday harvest at least some online goodwill and good publicity, which may or may not be worth the loss in sales. Black Friday weekend sales are actually falling, so maybe other retailers will take the hint too.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist