Thanksgiving shopping starts at dawn

As most of the country readies for a day of comfort in front of the TV and around the dining room table, retailers are hoping to entice some of us out of bed and into stores as early as 6 a.m. Thursday.

The biggest shopping weekend of the year is already underway with online deals and pre-Black Friday sales going live on Wednesday. And two stores in particular are hoping to get a leg up Thursday with the earliest hours in the industry.

Kmart opened at 6 a.m. and RadioShack at 8 a.m. Moving store hours into the holiday has become an increasingly popular strategy among major retailers in recent years; this year 25 million people are expected to shop Thanksgiving, according to the National Retail Federation.

Kmart has been opening at 6 a.m. on the holiday for 23 years. Spokesperson Jamie Stein says people line up as early as 3 a.m. with lines that grow to more than 100 people in some cases. But RadioShack, one of the brands struggling most in the retail industry today, will open on Thanksgiving for the first time this year, and beat most retailers' openings by at least nine hours. The decision is a result of evolving shopping trends, the company says.

"Given the customer demand for store hours on Thanksgiving last year, we made the decision to open on Thanksgiving," RadioShack spokesperson Andrea McCauley said in a company statement about holiday hours earlier this month. "It gives us the opportunity to stay competitive."

Both Kmart and RadioShack have been struggling amid store closures and declining customer traffic. Sales at RadioShack stores open at least a year were down 20% in the second quarter and the company is in the midst of closing 200 stores. Kmart parent Sears has also closed at least 130 underperforming stores this year across both brands.

Whether a mass of customers will actually show up at dawn on a family holiday for big box discounts or just a few hours later for phone accessories and other electronics is a risk the retailers take as part of the "battle for mindshare," says Joe Jackman, CEO of Jackman Reinvents, a company that helps businesses reposition themselves.

"It's not so much around the specific offer at this moment," he says. "If a brand like RadioShack says, 'we're going to be open early on Thanksgiving Day,' they're actually upping the chances that the consumer is going to plan that trip into their itinerary."

RadioShack in particular may also benefit from the fact that many of its locations are conveniently located and closer to where people live compared to big box stores, Jackman says. Stein says Kmart is positioned to serve eager customers looking for a jump start on deals just as much as last minute meal items like cranberry sauce and napkins. Whatever customers are shopping for, every hour a retailer is open while competitors are closed has the potential to grab more money from shoppers, Jackman says.

"They're really working hard to get customers in the door and get people to think of them," he says. "If you're a challenged business you're going to be a lot more aggressive and scrappier."

Karen Thomas, an etiquette consultant from Torrington, Conn., says she and her husband plan their Thanksgiving-weekend shopping around stores' circulars. This year they're headed to Target and Staples. While the Kmart in her town is closing and she says she doesn't need anything from RadioShack right now, she wouldn't be opposed to shopping early on Thanksgiving.

"In this economy, if the retailers are open I would definitely take advantage of it if there were items that were on my list that I needed to get, at a good price," says Thomas, 48.