The holiday selling competition just got a little more intense. Today, Kohl’s announced a plan to increase its store hours in the days leading up to Christmas. In total, the retailer will remain open around the clock for 179 straight hours, from 7 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 17, to 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve. That’s up from 132 hours last year.
In addition, the store will be offering numerous Early Bird promotions on Super Saturday, Dec. 19, starting at 6 a.m. until 1 p.m.
Both brick-and-mortar and online retailers have been pulling out all the stops to ring up more sales this holiday season, which is expected to bring in $631 billion this year, or about 19 percent of the retail industry’s annual sales of $3.2 trillion, according to the National Retail Federation.
During the Black Friday weekend, for instance, several retailers, including Kohl’s, JCPenney, Macy’s and Walmart, opened on Thanksgiving day to get an early start on the selling period. And earlier this week, Amazon.com generated excitement with its Green Monday promotions for last-minute gifts.
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For Kohl’s Corp., the round-the-clock sales push should help boost the company’s moderate gains so far this year. Last month, the firm reported that net sales had grown 1 percent in the first three quarters to $12.82 billion, compared with $12.69 billion during the same period in 2014. At the time, Kevin Mansell, Kohl’s chairman, president and CEO, said in a statement, “Most of our key initiatives enjoyed strong success, while weakness was concentrated in seasonal businesses.”
