The day after Thanksgiving has long been a huge shopping day, especially here in sales tax-free New Hampshire. But is Black Friday still the shopping extravaganza it was? On this episode of “The State We’re In,” host Melanie Plenda talks with Curtis Picard, president and CEO of the N.H. Retail Association, about the Black Friday phenomenon. 

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Black Friday, before the advent of online shopping, was crazy — especially here in New Hampshire. For our audience who may not remember, what was it like? 

Curtis Picard:

It's actually such a fascinating history because it goes back quite a few decades. The United States of America didn't have a solid Thanksgiving day on the calendar until the late 1930s-1940s, and it was only under FDR, when he finally heard from retailers like Macy's saying that they needed a solid date for when Thanksgiving should fall. So that really helped cement where we are today, and over the decades it certainly has evolved quite a bit.

I'm part of that generation from the 1980s where shopping malls were everything for retail — the midnight doorbusters and getting that large TV. But it certainly has evolved to where we are now in 2024.

Melanie Plenda:

How has online shopping changed the day? 

Curtis Picard:

I've been involved in retail associations for almost 20 years now. I've seen quite a bit in my tenure. We've seen the evolution just in my time from stores opening at midnight and having these great deals from midnight to 2 a.m. They’ve gotten a lot more savvy about the marketing. They've also expanded the window for when these deals are available to consumers — and that's really what they've always done, which is responding to consumer needs and wants.

So consumers have said that they want greater access to deals. They have more ability at their fingertips now to be able to shop for things online and compare prices. The consumer has always been in the driver's seat, but they're more in the driver's seat than they ever have been.

Melanie Plenda:

As a state without a sales tax, does that offer New Hampshire stores an advantage? Is it an incentive for others to come to the state? 

Curtis Picard:

What really helped evolve that phenomenon was the COVID pandemic. Going into the 2020 holiday shopping season, we worked with  government officials and tried to figure out the best way we could do holiday shopping that was safe for people. What we eventually were able to communicate to folks was you need to spread out the holiday shopping season. We don't want you to come on Black Friday, but we want to expand that window. Consumers really responded to it. So I think, since 2020, retailers have continued to expand that window of holiday shopping, and consumers have now learned that it's OK to do some of your holiday shopping in October or early November. You don't have to wait for Black Friday to do it. 

Melanie Plenda:

So, conversely, has it become a reason for New Hampshire residents to shop from home?

Curtis Picard:

I think the way we think of it now is — and this is also part of the pandemic as well — it wasn't just the large retailers or just the online retailers. Even small retailers had to learn how to better embrace e-commerce and what we call omni-channel. You want to meet your customers however they want to be served, whether that's in person in a brick-and-mortar store, whether they want to be able to online, order online, or pick up at the store, or just shop from home and have things delivered to their house. The COVID pandemic enabled a lot of smaller retailers to offer more of those services. So now, whether you're big or small, chances are, if you want to be successful in retail, you have to respond to customers in that way.

Melanie Plenda:

These must mirror retail trends in general. Can you tell us more about that, and how is the industry adapting? 

Curtis Picard:

That's always one of those things where you can take a look back after the holiday season and see how things do and how much of a predictor it was of the overall economy. But that really changed during the pandemic as well.

When it came to holiday shopping, we started to see a trend, even before the pandemic, of people appreciating their smaller, locally owned stores more. Small Business Saturday has been a thing for a long time, but I think our association and others have always emphasized that you need to support your small local retailers 365 days a year, not just one day out of the year. We had seen that trend before the pandemic, but the pandemic really emphasized it because people saw their locally owned stores really struggling, trying to navigate that pandemic, and I think people really embraced them. That's one of the trends that we've continued to see evolve. 

I also think that retailers benefited in those years of the pandemic because there was a lot of disposable income that was no longer used for eating out, going to concerts, doing experience type of things. People were trending back towards wanting to buy physical things. I think that's shifting back now, now that we're four years past the pandemic — people are feeling more comfortable going to concerts or lavish dinners, travel. It's a competition for dollars as well.

But then after the holiday season, we always take a look at where people actually spend their money. High-ticket items? Furnishings? Electronics? Brand-name luxury goods, or was it more the department stores or the bargain chains? But that's always a look back. It's hard to always predict how things are going to go. 

Melanie Plenda:

What about shopping trends outside the holiday season? How are stores generally adapting to balancing e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores? 

Curtis Picard:

Every retailer is working on mastering that. Some certainly do it better than others, but there's always been the evolution of retail. You're always responding to customer needs and wants. We can say that customers are always fickle, but you have to continue to earn their business, and that never gets easier.

So whether you're a popular New Hampshire-based retailer that's been around for decades, you still have to work at it. The business can't sit back on their laurels and take it for granted. You have to be responsive to customers. You have to keep your eye on different trends and wants and changing interests in the products you're offering. You’ve got to make sure your pricing is competitive, and that's certainly been a challenge more recently, with the inflationary pressures that everybody's been facing.

Melanie Plenda:

What are some creative solutions you’ve heard about to draw customers in?

Curtis Picard:

Retailers are like the best marketers out there. We talked in the beginning about Thanksgiving and the role that Macy's plays, even today. I don't know about you, but in my family, we still sit down on Thanksgiving Day and watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, because it's such an icon. Retailers do a really good job, marketing-wise, and they continue to try to appeal to customers and earn their business.

We talked about how now they've expanded the window of the holiday shopping season. We've seen the rise of things like gift cards over the last 10 or 12 years. Gift cards are really great giving tools, but the benefit for retailers is if you give a gift card during the holiday season to somebody, the hope is they're going to come back in January and spend that gift card when that's usually a slower time of year. So those are all marketing tools at retailers' disposal that they try to use, and a lot of them are quite successful.

Melanie Plenda:

Beyond planning our shopping, the success of Black Friday — whether it’s one day or two weeks — has a bigger impact on the retail industry in our state. For our audience, can you talk about that impact and what it means for residents?

Curtis Picard:

A lot of that is tradition. We all look forward to Black Friday. Certainly, media outlets reach out wanting to talk about Black Friday, how it's going and what the crowds are like. But we have that window between Thanksgiving and Christmas — Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, which is the Monday following Thanksgiving, and then you have those other weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

A lot of people don't realize that the full weekend before Christmas is often as busy, if not busier, than Black Friday. So we look at all of those things. The urban myth is that the term Black Friday refers to when retailers turn from unprofitable to profitable. You go from the red side of the ledger to the black side. I'm not sure that's really true. I've also heard stories that it goes back to the 1960s in Philadelphia, and it was just in reference to how chaotic the shopping day became. I don't know what the true story is, but it is within our shared history here in the United States, and it has become quite a tradition that carries on to this day.

Melanie Plenda:

When you look ahead five or even 10 years, what do you think Black Friday will look like? 

Curtis Picard:

That's a good question. I don't want to say it's not going to have an impact, because it's always going to have an impact. It's worked into our lexicon here in the United States and in New Hampshire, but I think what we've seen, customers will continue to be in the driver's seat. I think retailers and consumers have adapted to a longer shopping period, and the ability to get what you want and what you need quicker will continue to develop as well. You know, already there's online retailers that can deliver goods to you the same day. I think you're going to continue to see that expand. Black Friday is not going to go away, it's just going to continue to evolve.

Melanie Plenda:

That was so interesting. Thank you Curtis Picard, president and CEO of the New Hampshire Retail Association, for sharing your thoughts. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.