“Last week, over the objections of Retail Market Directors, Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook canceled plans to open several stores on Thanksgiving, citing the importance of allowing retail employees to be with their families over the holiday,” Daniel Eran Dilger reports for AppleInsider.
“The U.S. Thanksgiving holiday always falls on the fourth Thursday of November, and has traditionally held back holiday Christmas shopping until ‘Black Friday’ sales the next day,” Dilger reports. “A variety of retailers, including Kmart, Macys, Sears, Target Toys R Us and WalMart, have recently made plans to open on Thanksgiving in order to capitalize on holiday crowds.”
“Last year, only three Apple Stores heavily trafficked by tourists opened on Thanksgiving: locations on the Las Vegas Strip, Waikiki Beach in Hawaii and the company’s 24/7 Fifth Avenue store in New York City,” Dilger reports. “A series of other flagship Apple Retail stores were also planned to open on Thanksgiving this year, including select additional locations in San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Miami, San Diego and Portland.”
Read more in the full article here.
“On Wednesday morning over the objections of the Market Directors, Apple CEO Tim Cook cancelled the plan to keep several stores open on Thanksgiving,” Gary Allen reports for IfoAppleStore.
“Cook’s specific objection was that it’s important for Apple retail employees to be with their families on the holiday,” Allen reports. “On the other hand, the Market Directors were reportedly motivated by large potential holiday-quarter bonuses based on performance targets, adding to their $400,000 salaries. The last calendar quarter at Apple retail is always the busiest and generates the most revenue, leading to the largest bonuses.”
Read more in the full article here.
Did Cook also send each retail employee a George Winston CD and a bag of healing crystals?
Nice marketing move, Timmy, but not sure the net gain will outweigh the lost retail time during the most important time of the year.
Good for Tim. Apple is a company with a soul.
I agree 100%. This trend toward opening stores on Thanksgiving makes the employees have to decide between spending time with their families and possibly losing their job.
Boo-hoo. Millions of people have to work holidays. Quit yer whining.
Better dead than Red.
Agreed. Good decision, Tim. I don’t want Apple employees to be miserable drones who have to work on holidays. I also would never go to a car dealer that makes its mechanics to work on Sundays. Do you really think they are going to treat your car well when they have to work on days when they should be home with their families?
Police, fire, and emergency rooms need to be on Sundays and Thanksgiving. It’s the career they signed up for. Apple Store? No.
“Disappointed AAPL Shareholder” wins the MDN douche award! I don’t think I’ve ever seen 100 1-star votes on a comment before.
Just made it 105 and counting.
Added my vote to make it 155 – the highest vote count I’ve seen yet in MDN comments. Congratulations, disappointed douche bag.
Cook needs to stick to his guns on this. For every greedy prick that says the stores should be open, there is at least another well-adjusted individual that gets it.
Take a little closer look at Tim Cook… THIS is what leadership looks like, people!
Botty and myself had over 500 one star votes several times. New around here…
Your joking right ? Apple has enabled and turned a blind eye to the greatest criminal state in modern history. Some how doing business with the devil for a 38% profit margin should be a disqualification of being a good company. You have bought Apple’s marketing “social justice” bs hook line and stinker
Can’t say I agree with your reply. Good move to let people enjoy getting together with family and friends.
And here’s to the MDN readers who have annihilated Disappointed’s post with their down-voting. (And I hereby admit to being the Pleased AAPL Shareholder below.) If you really feel the urge to shop on Thanksgiving Day, go online to the Apple Store. Help your friends and family with their orders. Share the joy of owning Apple products. Apple will deliver the goods. I promise. Happy Holidays to all.
Bet nobody invites your greedy Scrooge ass over for the holidays.
Right there, in Disappointed’s brief post, is a lot of what is wrong with America today — “money before EVERYTHING”.
Or maybe “ANYTHING for money”?
You are a failure as a human being.
You’re a disgrace to the core apple investor race.
If anyone needs an example of the poisonous nature corporate shareholders have on our society, please refer to this post by “Disappointed AAPL Shareholder”. Greed knows no bounds.
I also own AAPL stock, but I don’t believe that gives me the right to treat other people like they are sub-human and not deserving the same privileges that I have.
derp. the online store won’t be closed. Most people will be home with their families. People can deal for one day.
I’m so sorry you are disappointed other people won’t work on a holiday in order to put a few pennies in your pocket.
Where are you going on Thanksgiving?
Hey Carl, is that you?
No fsckin’ way Steve Jobs would have done something like this. No fsckin’ way. Steve Jobs was a man.
Timmy is too new-agey to be a serious CEO. God forbid if Cook were ever confronted with a real competitor and actually had to face a real fight. Tim would be out there offering them daisies and Apple would be doomed.
Doubling down on your stupidity isn’t a good strategy.
Your consolation prize is the lift in stock price due to Thanksgiving goodwill and major savings in public relations spending, thanks to Tim Cook’s shrewdness and common sense. Besides, Apple execs already sleep on mattresses stuffed with greenbacks.
I bet the slave labor (sub contractor) apple factories inside the CCP keep the coal fires burning
I fear it’s a losing battle, but I’m glad it’s being fought.
Tim Cook, you’re alright. 🙂
Nice move. Unfortunately, Apple stores were open here in Canada on our Thanksgiving Day in October. Our guys & gals might have looked to have it off, too. Too bad.
Drop Tim a line expressing your disappointment with this. Strike while the topic is hot:
tim@apple.com
To us Yanks, it’s just Columbus Day – a big non-holiday, noted only in that it’s just another Monday when the government is closed.
Like qka, for whatever reason, lots of americans just assume your holidays are the same. It would be cool if apple localized the same holiday policies around the world. It seems like it would be easy enough. Having lots of Canadian friends facebook makes me aware of your holidays. If it weren’t for that I wouldn’t know.
Canadian Thanksgiving does not have a fraction of the importance it has in the USA, Furthermore, Quebec’s Thanksgiving (Action de Grâce) has no importance whatsoever, apart from being a holiday, English (protestant?) custom, nothing to do with French culture. Turkey and stuffings are for Xmas.
Actually purely colonial. England doesn’t do Thanksgiving, and our “Harvest Fesitval” sounds similar to Action de Grace, and like the Canadian Thanksgiving is earlier in the year. So I don’t think it’s a Protestant/catholic thing
I guess US Thanksgiving is more important because it’s bound up in the “Foundation Myth” for that country, but being neither a historian nor a US citizen, I may well be wrong.
It is the most important family day of the year. I have been an expat US citizen for nearly 20 years and we still celebrate Thanksgiving. Christmas has become very commercial. Thanksgiving is free of that.
Canada doesn’t count, only blue states USA and CCP China !!!
Classy move, Tim! Sure would be nice if the slave-bosses at the big-box stores did the same.
Bravo Tim!
May this serve as a reminder to us all that our loved ones are more important than business.
It’s just like Apple to boldly contradict the current trend, especially when the trend is bad.
Additionally Apple may get some positive PR from this decision, which may make up for the loss in potential sales.
I’m so proud to be an AAPL share holder and Mac evangelist.
You mean to say that concern for families outweighs the dollar-bill urges of money-grubbing retail managers? Why can’t Apple run its business like Walmart and treat its employees like shit?
It was the money grubbing retail directors wanting to inflate their $400K annual base salary with bonuses earned on the backs of the minimum wage, no benefit retail workers. Tim needs to see some turnover in the mid-ranks, it would seem. Fire the greedy bastages.
PURE marketing strategies, including just a single day, can change and destroy the landscape of a company in many ways. Just ask MS, and SJ noted that. There is very little difference in John Browetts philosophy of milking all you can from fewer apple store people for better profit ratio – and this.
Good for Tim, and Apple!
God bless, Tim Cook.
From me and my family , thank you!
Which Apple Store do you work at? 🙂 Happy holidays!
How big are the actual sales for apple on that day? They aren’t known to offer any real discounts on Black Friday.. I’m sure online store will be open
You are completely wrong. In fact Black Friday is the single day of the year that everyone can purchase at 10% off in stores and not just students.
There’s something to be said for class.
Shows a lot of class Apple. Being closed for one day will not break them. Look at Chick-fil-a they are closed every Sunday and they are not struggling. Great to see businesses put values above profits.
The beautiful part is that regardless of whether their brick and mortar stores are open, they will STILL sell tons through the online store and through their 3rd party retailers that are open. It’s a win-win for them. No one’s going to NOT buy the Apple product just because they can’t get into an Apple store that one day. Please.
Boy, what a blunder. I’ll bet all the folks who went to the Apple Store and discovered it closed were so disappointed that they rushed over to by a Zune Pad, or a Galaxy or some other POS. I’m sure I would.
Swing Geezer: Judging by all the negative votes you’re getting, some people just don’t recognize sarcasm without a /s.
Wow! A guy and a company with values. You get my vote.
Class act. Say what you want about Tim Cook. No, he’s no Steve Jobs, nor is anyone else in the world. But, he opened up AAPL shareholders to very nice dividends, manages to buy a wide array of companies to help their strategic moves, and holds off billionaire snoops Like Carl Icahn. Apple’s record breaking stock by-back is fine. This company has made its shareholders more money than 98% of companies in the world. Ask your friends at Microsoft and Dell how their portfolio has been over the past 10 years.
Reminds me of another, tinier “Tim.”
“God bless us, every one.”
(And I’m an agnostic.)
The Flying Spaghetti Monster smiles down on Tim for this noble action. And on you and me, too, Mac Plus. :;
I can’t say I’m sorry, but what happened to the rain of hate on Tim Cook’s head? That architect of mediocrity, the thumb-twiddling mental deficient, the indifferent hand slipping from the tiller of a rudderless ship?
Maybe universal human values trump the conditioned responses of techno politico religious belief systems, after all.
Many’s the devout patron bowing their head in church come Sunday morning only to go sneck-lifting to fuddle in the snuggery the week long.
By the way, nice new hair, Ms hjs… 😉
Mayhap we once crossed paths at a certain Brougham bridge searching for a quarternionic inscription.
Wtf are you two talking about?
The right thing to go. Thanks Tim!!
Odd that we’re having this discussion over something so obviously correct. Tim Cook made what should be an easy decision to do the right thing. Bravo.
For me, a Canadian atheist, Thanksgiving provides the marker that curling will be starting the following day.
It is however a good day to spend with family. I think that Apple should examine closely the traditions and practices of the countries or regions in which they operate and localize their efforts.
Good for Tim. A real CEO that happens to actually care about his employees and not the next buck.