For decades, the day after Thanksgiving has attracted massive crowds and hysteria outside of malls and stores nationwide.Thousands of shoppers gather sometimes as early as 5 pm Thanksgiving Day itself, jostling for themad dash into their favorite shops to grab Black Friday doorbuster deals on flatscreen TVs, diamond necklaces, holiday toys, winter coats and more.
Now imagine this scenario in a pandemic.”I just can’t envision that happening this year,” said Scott Rankin, principal and national consumer and retail strategy leader with KPMG US.”With everything that’s going on, there may be no Black Friday at all,” said Rankin. “I can’t imagine retailers buying inventory to stock up for an event designed to pack hundreds of people into a store. There are so many risks to that.”