Dec 8, 2014 3 min read

Move aside, Black Friday. Black Thursday cometh.

Avid Black Friday shopaholics were possibly shocked to see a substantial decrease in challengers Thanksgiving weekend.

Reports indicated a decline in retail sales this Black Friday, a date typically renowned for enormous holiday shopping savings.

Don’t interpret this statistic the wrong way – the bargains shoppers love were still abundant.

However, it seems the battles might be shifting from shopping malls to the calendar in years to come, as this year, Black Friday experienced stiff competition from Cyber Monday and Thanksgiving Day itself.

Cyber Monday, the relatively new sister event to Black Friday, hosts similarly outrageous deals as its predecessor, only in a digital environment, as opposed to the more orthodox retail environment.

With the continual growth of online shopping, it’s no wonder this annual phenomenon is already a full-fledged tradition for some; Business Insider reports a “record-shattering” 8.7 percent increase in Cyber Monday sales from 2013.

This massive leap in sales accompanies another such jump on the original Thanksgiving tagalong, Black Friday. While retail sales took a 7 percent hit this year, as reported by The Huffington Post, virtual sales had a kinder fate in store, with numbers increasing as much as 26 percent.

Once again, evolving shopping habits are undoubtedly to blame for this sudden shift, especially with online retailers such as Amazon growing progressively popular over the years.

A digitalized economy wasn’t the only source of adversity for physical markets this season, however.

Many analysts are fingering increasingly early discounts as the culprits.

Many big-name retailers such as Macy’s and Target made the bold decision to open doors early Thanksgiving Day.

To circumvent the notoriously cutthroat shopping wars of Black Friday doorbusters, many shoppers took these companies up on their offer, some passing up on the traditional event altogether. Thus, a new anomaly in the world of holiday shopping, which some coined “Black Thursday,” was born.

Statistics point to a massive bound in sales numbers for Thanksgiving Day, with net online sales soaring 32 percent and retail sales climbing an impressive 24 percent. Online sales for the rest of the month – including every day prior to Black Friday itself – leapt a fair 15 percent, as well.

These numbers certainly do not indicate the demise of one of America’s most widely-recognized retail traditions, but they do point to a certain decline.

With technology continuing to develop and expand and stores opening earlier and earlier each year, it only seems like a matter of time before these new trends skyrocket.

But is that necessarily a bad thing?

I, for one, would take a few cramped fingers and a drained computer battery over a mosh pit of hysterical bargain hunters any day.