Holiday Retail
Finance professor Tom Arnold is a retail expert who can comment on holiday retail trends, Black Friday
He’s been quoted on these topics in many national media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post.
This year, Arnold says not to expect many stores to be open on Thanksgiving.
"Prior to the pandemic, retailers had started being open earlier and earlier on Thanksgiving. The trend had started creating some bad publicity for having employees work on a family holiday and some retailers started to announce in a very conspicuous manner about being closed on Thanksgiving to honor the holiday. In reality, many consumers were simply starting to shop online, which was much easier than battling crowds of bargain hungry shoppers on Thanksgiving. Consequently, being open on Thanksgiving started to become unnecessary and the pandemic practically put a halt to the already declining trend."
— Tom Arnold, University of Richmond finance professor
Arnold also says Black Friday has evolved into a multi-week season over the last ten years. Check out what Arnold has to say about that plus other comments about Black Friday here: The Black Friday Shopping Season.
Contact Cynthia Price (cprice2@richmond.edu), associate vice president of media and public relations, to connect with Tom Arnold.
