Black Friday: Walmart, Target and Best Buy Open on Thanksgiving

Black Friday should be renamed Black Thanksgiving.

More and more retailers are opting for longer hours on Thanksgiving (Nov. 23), closing for a few hours overnight — when once-large crowds have begun to thin — and then re-opening on Friday morning with a new set of deals. It’s easy to see why chains like Best Buy, (BBY) Macy’s (M) and Target (TGT), prefer to give staff time to clean up the store and rest up for the second half of the Black Friday frenzy, what with more and more customers opting for e-commerce, anyway. Last year, some 10 million more Americans shopped online than in stores, continuing a years-long trend.

Some retailers, desperate for sales, extended their Thanksgiving hours.

J.C. Penney (JCP) will open stores at 2 p.m., an hour earlier than last year, and three earlier than many of its mall-based department store rivals like Macy’s. Kohl’s is also opening an hour earlier this year, opting for a 5 p.m. jump to the shopping extravaganza. And others have continued to stay away from the Thanksgiving and Friday night madness. REI is going one stop further and closing on Black Friday, which is not a statutory holiday, unlike Thanksgiving.

Retailers will be fighting hard this coming weekend.

The National Retail Federation has forecast that holiday retail spending, excluding cars, gas and restaurants, would rise 3.6% to 4% this holiday season and could total $682 billion in November and December. While Black Friday is a diluted event, with sales starting earlier in the month at most major chains, it still anchors the biggest shopping weekend of the year and can get a retailer’s holiday season off to a good, or bad, start.

The NRF expects as many as 164 million Americans will hit stores or shop online over the weekend, which extends to Cyber Monday, November 27, with 115 million set to shop on Black Friday, and 32 million on Turkey Day. Here is a rundown of the store hours of some major retailers. (Some advice: Call ahead. These hours can vary by state, according to local laws or by location within a market.)

Walmart: Open all day Thanksgiving but Black Friday deals get underway at 6 p.m. local time.
Target: Open Thanksgiving at 6 p.m. (compared to 5 p.m.) through midnight and then re-opening Black Friday at 6 a.m.
Best Buy: Open Thanksgiving at 5 p.m. through 1 a.m. on Friday, before re-opening at 8 a.m.
Macy’s: Open Thanksgiving at 5 p.m. through 2 a.m. on Friday, before re-opening at 6 a.m.
Kohl’s: Open Thanksgiving at 5 p.m. and not closing until 31 hours later, at the stroke of midnight on Friday, Nov. 25.
J.C. Penney: Open Thanksgiving at 2 p.m. and will remain open until 10 p.m. on Friday.
Sears: Open Thanksgiving at 6 p.m. through midnight, before re-opening Friday morning at 5 a.m.
Kmart: Open 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving through midnight, and re-opening on Friday morning at 6 a.m.
Toys R Us: Open Thanksgiving at 5 p.m. through to 11 p.m. on Black Friday
Ulta Beauty: Open Thanksgiving 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Black Friday, then again from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
GameStop: Open Thanksgiving 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., then on Friday 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Dick’s Sporting Goods: Open Thanksgiving 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Friday, then re-opening at 5 a.m. through 10 p.m.
The Gap: Varies a lot by store, but those opening on Thanksgiving are largely doing so at 6 a.m.
Old Navy: Open at 4 p.m. on Thanksgiving and all the way through to midnight on Friday.