Toys ‘R’ Us will open on Thanksgiving Day. The toy retailer said Monday it is offering 30 straight hours of non-stop Black Friday shopping—opening at 5 p.m. Local time on Thursday, Nov. 24, and closing at 11 p.m. The next day.
“Our customers have voted at the doors year after year, and they continue to want the option to get an early start on their holiday shopping lists,” said Joe Venezia, executive vice president of global store operations at Toys ‘R’ Us, in a statement.
The store is amping up the number of employees working Black Friday and will offer express checkout lanes to customers who have four items or less. “Toy experts” will also be available to answer customer’s questions, according to the company.
While this may be great for shoppers seeking a head-start, Toys ‘R’ Us joins a narrowing group of stores that will be open on the holiday.
Since opening on Thanksgiving mainly benefits deal-driven retailers, like Best-Buy and Walmart, more non-cyclical companies are choosing to stay closed. For example, the electronics and appliance retailer hhgregg, which hasn’t closed for Thanksgiving since 2011, will be shutting its doors, and the Mall of America—the biggest shopping center of all—is only welcoming customers on Black Friday. Mall developer CBL & Associates announced it’s closing 72 of its malls for the occasion, and Office Depot won’t be open either, even though it was last year.
On top of Best-Buy and Walmart, other deal-driven retailers like Macy’s, Target, Kohl’s, and Sears, among others, will all be open on Thanksgiving Day.
