How Target Tackles A ‘Black Friday’ That’s 10 Days Long

By 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, a line of waiting shoppers snaked around the outside of Target’s Jersey City store, readying their strollers and shopping carts for the moment the uniformed team member at the door would open the doors and usher them inside. “You don’t have to run, just go right on in,” he cautioned, but this crowd hardly seemed like the teeming, fist-fighting mass that’s become a trope of local TV news on Black Friday. Many of the early-bird shoppers were families coming to stock up on toys and TVs, or groups of 20-something friends making a beeline for the Apple section. It was busy, sure, but nothing the team hadn’t prepared for. Like other Target stores across the country this past weekend, doors stayed open until midnight on Thursday, and reopened at 6 a.m. on Friday morning. Preparations began weeks ago in order to make sure the busiest days of the season were fully staffed, said Samantha Sieka, the store’s team leader. Like most retailers, Target hires a fleet of additional associates and security during the holidays — more than 100,000 of them, in fact, over 1,800 stores — to make sure merchandise is stocked, lines don’t get out of control, and in-store pickup and ship-from-store orders are fulfilled. And in the lead-up to Black Friday, it’s all hands on deck. Read more at Racked.