Many Eastern Iowa retailers opening doors on Thanksgiving

A trend in recent years for some retailers to close their doors on Thanksgiving appears to have stalled, with many national chains opening Thursday afternoon or evening to get a jump start on all-important Black Friday sales.

But TJX Companies, which launched a 'Bring Back the Holidays” campaign in November 2015, will keep its stores closed on Thursday.

'Similar to years past, T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods and Sierra Trading Post stores will be closed on Thanksgiving,” said Ericka Tower, assistant vice president, corporate communications, for the Framingham, Mass., retailer. 'We consider ourselves an associate-friendly company, and we are pleased to give associates the time to enjoy Thanksgiving with family and friends. On Friday, Nov. 25, most of our stores will open at 7 a.m.”

Family-owned regional retailers Blain's Farm and Fleet and Von Maur also will be shut on Thanksgiving.

'For 61 years, our stores have always closed to allow our associates a joyful Thanksgiving with their families,” said Jane Blain Gilbertson, president and CEO of Janesville, Wis.-based Blain's Farm and Fleet. 'Our competitors may open their doors on Thanksgiving Day, but we hope our customers understand and appreciate that we honor our past, our traditions, our associates and our community.”

'As a fourth-generation, family-owned business, instilling family values throughout Von Maur is at the core of what we do,” said Jim von Maur, president of Davenport-based Von Maur. 'For us, it not about how big of lines we can have outside our stores or sales volumes on a particular day. Rather, our focus is on respecting our customers and associates time on such a special day, and it's great to see more and more retailers are starting to understand this and are willing to also close their doors around the holidays.”

Yet many retailers with stores in the Corridor will have the holiday lights on Thursday.

J.C. Penney will open at 3 p.m. on Thanksgiving, joining other large retailers such as Best Buy, Gordman's, Kohl's, Michaels, Old Navy, Sears, Target, Toys R Us and Bon-Ton (Younker's) that will launch Black Friday sales.

'We opened at 3 o'clock last year, which was earlier than prior years, and it was very successful,” said Barry Donovan, manager of J.C. Penney at Westdale in Cedar Rapids. 'We're just kind of doing what the customer seems to want.”

Donovan said employees know ahead of time that they may need to work holidays.

'When we hire, we always say, ‘You need to be available to work on Thanksgiving,' and we also tell them that they will likely be working some long hours through Christmas Eve day,” Donovan said. 'We are closed on Christmas.”

Despite the marketing push, the number of people shopping on Thanksgiving Day has been declining nationwide. Last year, 34.6 million adults shopped on Thanksgiving, down from 43.1 million in 2014 and 44.8 million in 2013, according to an annual survey from the National Retail Federation, an industry trade group.