Stores Open On Thanksgiving Day 2017 & Hours

The topic of stores opening on Thanksgiving Day remains a controversial one, and more retailers may be added to the list in 2017. While there was somewhat of a pushback last year when HHGregg and Office Depot & OfficeMax changed course and decided to close on Thanksgiving, other stores doubled down and opened even earlier. GAMESTOP, retailers had been closed on Thanksgiving in current years has already announced their plans to be unlocked for business this year.

Thanksgiving Day is on Thursday, November 23rd, 2017, and more than 40 national retailers will be open. RushToStores will post the whole list of stores which open on Thanksgiving Day 2017 towards the middle of November, but you can discover a brief example of a few retailers that we expect to be on the list below. However, you can also see our running list of Stores Closed on Thanksgiving Day 2017 and Black Friday 2017 Hours.

Confirmed Stores Open On Thanksgiving Day 2017

• Bass Pro Shops – 8 a.m. to 6 p.m
• Belk – Thanksgiving 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. Black Friday
• Big Lots (hours not yet announced)
• Five Below – Thanksgiving 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. Black Friday
• GameStop (hours not yet announced)
• JCPenney – Thanksgiving 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. Black Friday
• Kohl’s – 5 p.m.
• Kmart – Opens 6 a.m.; Doorbusters Thanksgiving 6 p.m. to 2 p.m. Black Friday
• Macy’s – Thanksgiving 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Black Friday or Thanksgiving 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Black Friday
• Michaels – 6 p.m.; Opens at 5 p.m. for Rewards members.
• Rite Aid – Hours Vary by Location (most stores open)
• Sears – 6 p.m. to 12 a.m.
• Shopko – Thanksgiving 4 p.m. to 2 p.m. Black Friday
• Target – 6 p.m. to 12 a.m.
• Toys R Us – Thanksgiving 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. Black Friday

Here is a preview of stores that will most likely be added to the list by early November.

Stores Probably Open On Thanksgiving Day 2017 (Not Yet Official)

• Best Buy (5 p.m. – Predicted Opening Time)
• Dick’s Sporting Goods (6 p.m. – Predicted Opening Time)
• Walgreens (8 a.m. – Predicted Opening Time)
• Walmart (6 p.m. – Predicted Opening Time)

You can review the Thanksgiving Day 2016 Openings List to get a good idea of all of the stores to expect this year.

Thanksgiving Hours Information

Retailers handle being open on Thanksgiving in two different ways.

1. Open on Thanksgiving and remain open through Black Friday.

2. Open on Thanksgiving, close for a few hours, and open again on Black Friday morning.

For stores remaining open the entire night into Friday, we will post the complete hours because it’s really just one big continuous sale. For stores opening on Thanksgiving but closing at a few points before Friday, we will only post the Thursday hours here. As always, you can discover the complete Thursday and/or Friday hours for every store on our Black Friday Store Hours for 2017 page.

GameStop Will Be Open This Year, and Other Stores Could Follow Their Lead

As we recently reported, GameStop announced their controversial decision to open on Thanksgiving Day this year. While GameStop cited “family time” as the reason for remaining closed on Turkey Day in recent years, they are claiming that employees and customers have asked for them to be open this year.

Regardless of GameStop’s reason, all stores are faced with a problem when it comes to their decision to open or close on Thanksgiving. Numerous surveys conducted by RushToStores.Online over the years have shown that Americans do not view stores that choose to open on Thanksgiving in a favorable light. Last year’s survey showed that only around 18 percent of respondents were in favor of Turkey Day openings, and that figure has not changed much over the past few years. Our 2017 survey results will be in towards the end of September.

On the other hand, a ton of people shop on Thanksgiving, and remaining closed means lost sales. While reputation is significant, there is an important number of people shopping on Thanksgiving. GameStop ultimately made the decision to take a hit to their reputation in order to have a chance at capturing some of the sales that are inevitably going to happen.

Whether or not any other stores decide to reverse course and open on Thanksgiving Day remains to be seen, but it is a very individual decision for each retailer. ShopperTrak reports that retail traffic to brick-and-mortar stores on Thanksgiving last year was slightly down. Adobe reports that online sales on Thanksgiving Day last year were significantly up. A compromise is to only have online sales on Turkey Day, but there is just too much to lose for many retailers in closing on Thursday.

Thanksgiving May Be More Important Than Black Friday

Black Friday is still going to see more sales than Thanksgiving, both online and offline, but Thanksgiving may have the better doorbusters. Prior to around 2013, most of the top Black Friday doorbusters were in-store only and not available until Friday morning. While Black Friday still does have some elite in-store only doorbusters, a majority of the top items, in fact, become available on Thanksgiving.

With more top doorbusters being available online, this is good news for stores who decide to remain closed on Thanksgiving. They can easily win over shoppers with improved online doorbusters than their competitors. Regardless of the push towards online shopping, over $1.5 billion will likely be spent in retail stores on Thanksgiving Day 2017. That is a lot of potential sales, and they will be split between the select few stores that decide to open.

In other words, Black Friday will see more in total sales, but the money will be spread out among a lot more stores. Thanksgiving Day will see fewer sales but the money will be increasingly out among fewer retailers.