What will COVID-19’s effect be on Black Friday retail sales?

Black Friday has slowly lost ground for brick-and-mortar retail with the growth of e-commerce. For 2020, the year of the pandemic, no one really knows what is going to happen on Black Friday. It may be that Black Friday as a single-day event is not longer germane. It has been eclipsed by the more meaningful question of whether brick-and-mortar stores can fight off both direct-to-consumer businesses and the drop in customer foot traffic because of the pandemic.

Black Friday as a shopping event had its peak in the 80s and 90s, before Amazon and other e-commerce spawned the retail apocalypse for department stores and mall-based retail.

Idaho’s small-business retailers are doing their best not to take this punch on the chin. As one example, the retail members of the Idaho Falls Downtown Development Corporation created their own promotional events for Black Friday and following Saturday. Their efforts are being helped by the current run of local TV commercials and social media videos from the Museum of Idaho, designed to tempt a visit to the downtown Idaho Falls attraction before the popular dinosaur exhibit goes away in January.

The retailers of the IFDDC centered their efforts around downtown’s Idaho Falls’ traditional Christmas tree lighting on Black Friday at Civitan’s Plaza. IFDDC originally designed a socially-distanced tree lighting ceremony, socially-distanced Santa, socially-distanced horse-drawn trolley rides and self-guided tours of some of downtown’s most historic buildings, all for Black Friday and the following Saturday. The trolley rides were also scheduled for every Saturday up to Christmas. Face masks or other equivalent face coverings were required.

Since IFDDC’s plans were originally announced, case counts rose from 10 to over 15 cases per 10,000, the number of people hospitalized in eastern Idaho for COVID-19 more than doubled and Governor Brad Little returned the state to a hybrid Stage Two of the Idaho Rebound program. Six of the Eastern Idaho Public Health District counties are under mask mandates.

Consequently, IFDDC canceled the trolley rides and the historic building tours. The Christmas tree lighting is still on except now it is virtual and will be streamed at 6 p.m. on Nov. 27.

Downtown Idaho Falls business have not given up though. Their holiday shopping newsletters and social media announcements are still bullish on getting masked and socially-distanced shoppers into town to support local small business: “Plan a shopping day with your friends where you only visit small, local enterprises instead of chain stores. Spending your money at a small business generally puts more money into the local economy than if you’re spending that money in a chain store.  And you get the added benefit of personal one-on-one service, finding unique one of a kind items and that good feeling that comes with shopping in a small business that is owned and operated by your neighbors!”

Steve Horwitz is an economics professor at Ball State University who specializes in consumer goods. Because of the pandemic, he believes that the upcoming holiday shopping season will be unique as retailers adjust to pandemic conditions: “The challenge of how to get sales close to typical holiday seasons while still protecting themselves and their customers is a tricky one. No firm can afford to be the site of a superspreading event, so they have every reason to try to keep everyone safe.”

Horwitz notes that several major retailers have changed their Black Friday plans. Target, Best Buy, Walmart, and Macy’s will be closed on Thanksgiving Day. For the day after, most stores will face capacity constraints that will put an end to the huge sales and long lines of the traditional Black Friday.

Instead, big stores are adopting two alternative strategies. Horwitz commented: ““First, they are emphasizing their online options, including curbside delivery. Second, and perhaps more important, they are extending their Black Friday sales earlier into the year, with many beginning this week,” he said. “By stretching out the holiday shopping season over more than two months, they are engaging in a kind of social distancing through time. With more time to shop for great deals, fewer people will want to be in the store on any given day, including the Friday after Thanksgiving, and that will keep everyone safer.”

Even Amazon has jumped on this trend by staggering Black Friday events on its website beginning in the middle of November. Several retail observers such as Business Insider, Retail Dive and blackfriday.com have argued that Amazon really started its Black Friday impingement by moving its 2020 Prime Day from July to mid-October, a time when most retail stores begin their holiday season preparations.