If you want to get door-buster Black Friday deals, you may have to eat your Thanksgiving dinner at the mall food court this year.
For the past few years, retailers have been inching up their Black Friday holiday hours well into the evening hours on Thanksgiving Day. In fact, so many malls and retailers have announced plans to open their doors on Thanksgiving that retailers are now making news for announcing plans to close on Turkey Day.
One mall in upstate New York is making the decision for its tenant store, threatening to fine stores that don’t open at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.
Related: November Deals You Must Know Before Black Friday
Retailers have pushed Black Friday opens earlier and earlier each year to keep pace with other chains, and with web merchants like Amazon, which are available to shoppers 24/7.
Best Buy and Toys R Us, for example, will open their doors at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, an hour before competitors Target and Wal-Mart let shoppers in.
A third of retailers are planning on opening on Thanksgiving Day, according to a survey by Jones Lang LaSalle of the more than 800 stores at shopping centers it manages. Nearly half (45 percent) of consumers say they plan on shopping on Thanksgiving this year, up from 38 percent last year, according to a survey by Accenture.
Overall retail sales are expected to increase 4 percent this year, the strongest gains in three years, according to the International Council of Shopping Center.
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