Black Friday 2015: Another Big Store Closes For All Of Thanksgiving As Gamestop Reveals Black Friday Hours

With now less than 50 days to go, the predictions and rumors for Black Friday 2015 are starting to turn into solid information and confirmed hours. Before you know it, all the ads will be coming out and people will begin scrambling to make their shopping plans. Well, the ever-continuing debate of whether stores should be open or not just got another argument for being against it as Gamestop will stay closed until Black Friday itself.

The thing is, they won’t just be closed until Thanksgiving technically ends, but they are waiting until the morning of Black Friday to open their doors.

According to Best Black Friday, Gamestop is going to stay closed on Thanksgiving Day as they have in the past, but they won’t be opening at midnight either. Rumor now has it that its 4,000-plus stores won’t be opening until 5 a.m. on Black Friday morning.

These hours and Thanksgiving Day closures will be in effect for all Gamestop, Simply Mac, Spring Mobile, ThinkGeek, and Cricket Wireless stores. Think Progress reports that Mike Buskey, executive vice president and president of U.S. stores says its for a good reason.

“We believe strongly that our customers and associates should have the opportunity to spend the Thanksgiving holiday relaxing with family and friends. We know this is in stark contrast to what many other retailers are doing, but we are taking a stance to protect family time during this important holiday.”

Many companies say their stores are often staffed by volunteers for the actual holidays and Black Friday, or by those who want the extra work hours. A number of employees have said differently over the years though and some say they have been threatened with termination if they refuse to work as scheduled for those big shopping days.

Just last week, Staples decided to reverse its stance on being open on Thanksgiving Day and announced they will be closed this year. Last year, the chain opened at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving, but they aren’t having that this year, according to Oregon Live.

North American Staples President Demos Parneros issued a statement saying that they won’t determine how people celebrate their holiday.

“We want our customers and associated to enjoy Thanksgiving their own way.”

Black Friday sales have started earlier each and every year for the past few. At first, many stores were opening at midnight on Black Friday, but then it started leaking into the late Thanksgiving evening hours. Now, some stores open early evening or even on Thanksgiving morning for one sale and then again on Black Friday for an entirely different one.

This has drawn numerous complaints from customers and shoppers as they don’t want to miss out on deals, but are being forced away from their families as well. It’s also turned up the crowd sizes in stores for the holiday.

Last year, a lot of holiday spending was spread out over the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Many shoppers also bought a lot of items online and waited until for sales like Cyber Monday, Cyber Week, and and Green Monday.

In 2014, Thanksgiving weekend traffic actually dropped 5.2 percent from the previous year, and spending was down 6.4 percent. Still, overall retail sales grew 3.2 percent in November from 2013 and that was due to longer and multiple sales.

Gamestop is done being open on Thanksgiving and knows they can do online sales or bigger Black Friday 2015 sales to make up for the lost time. A number of stores could very well follow in their footsteps and those of Staples to give the holiday back to families and let them shop later.

[Images via Getty Images – Ethan Miller/Joe Raedle/Stan Honda]