On Topic: Everybody’s working for the weekend

This is it, the big showdown for retail.

It used to be that the general consumer retail industry geared up for three significant selling periods each year - spring, back to school and Christmas. But over the years, the economy and shopping habits have shaved that down to this one, make-or-break, get-tough-or-go-broke chunk of days.

And the kings of the season are this coming Thursday through Sunday.

Make no mistake, this is tremendously big business. Here are some statistics from those eternal optimists at the National Retail Federation, as of just last week:

' 44.8 million consumers shopped on Thanksgiving Day alone last year, which is up by an amazing 27 percent from the year before.

' 92.1 million folk shopped on Black Friday 2013.

' 248.7 million consumers walked into brick-and-mortar stores or scurried about on the Internet to buy stuff from Thanksgiving Day to Sunday last year.

' $407 was the average amount of money dropped by shoppers over that four-day period last year, for a total of - take a deep breath - $50 billion.

So you see what the fuss is about.

Adding an extra dose of anxiety for retailers is when Thanksgiving - locked by Congressional declaration since 1941 to the fourth Thursday of November - comes only four weeks before Dec. 25, as it will this year and as it did in 2013.

So no wonder stores market the dickens out of Christmas and this one long weekend, piling gift items, tree decorations, cards and other holiday merchandise onto their shelves as fast as they can toss out the Halloween candy.

But here comes another wrinkle that began to gain national traction last year - employees who don't want to work that day.

As more retail workers have spoken out about preferring to stay home with family - or, at least, not be obligated to cope with frenzied shoppers - a slew of big chains have decided that could be a clever marketing twist.

So while J.C. Penney, Best Buy, Kohl's, Wal-Mart and others still plan to open their doors at some time on Thursday, many others have said no thanks, pass the turkey. That list includes heavyweights such as Home Depot, Pier 1, Costco, Barnes & Nobel, Home Goods, Lowe's and Dillard's.

'We consider ourselves an associate-friendly company,” proclaimed a statement from the parent company of T.J. Maxx, another retailer that will be closed.

Yet here's one more number, this from Accenture, a consulting company: Its latest survey claims 47 percent of Americans plan to shop in a physical store this coming Thursday.

If you were operating a store - one or a chain of 10,000 - would you want to miss out on your possible cut of that?

I worked retail all through high school and much of college, and I and my co-workers jumped at the opportunity for holiday pay. That, and things usually were bedlam, so those days tended to be fun.

I admit it could be the mists of time that make me remember that 'fun” part. And, I confess, that was before stores even thought of opening on Thanksgiving Day itself, so the specific choice of extra cash versus turkey never presented itself.

We can argue being open on Thanksgiving Day as a family-values issue. Or we can leave it to Adam Smith and his influential book, 'The Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, which said, hey, it's supply and demand.

If some stores want to be open that day, and if they can round up enough eager employees - whom they adequately compensate - let them.

And you'd rather sit out that day and save your shopping for later, do that.

You wallet eventually will settle the issue, one way or the other.

' Michael Chevy Castranova is enterprise editor and Sunday business editor of The Gazette. (319) 398-5873; michael.castranova@thegazette.com