Forget Black Friday, it's all about 'Turkey Wednesday'

For several grocers and their private brands, the biggest shopping day of the year is not Black Friday — it’s "Turkey Wednesday."

“There may not be a bigger day for grocers than the Wednesday before Thanksgiving,” Ethan Chernofsky, vice president of marketing for Placer.ai, wrote in a blog for the retail foot traffic analytics platform.

According to Placer.ai research, several grocers will be expecting high traffic at their stores on Wednesday, Nov. 27, based on previous research. Obviously, this bodes well for their private brands.

Check out these numbers from past "Turkey Wednesdays," the moniker provided by Chernofsky, according to Placer.ai:

• For Lakeland, Fla.-based Publix Super Markets, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving marked the highest day for store visits nationwide in 2017 and 2018. For the period beginning October 2017 and running through October 2019, visits the Wednesday before Thanksgiving rose 87.2% and 85.2% above the baseline, besting every other day during the period.

• Safeway stores, operated by Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons Cos., saw visits rise 78.4% and 75.8% above the baseline for the same period beating out every other day.

• At Albertsons stores, visits rose 102.2% above in 2017 and 96.6% above in 2018.

• Austin, Texas-based and Amazon-owned Whole Foods Markets and Carlisle, Pa.-based Giant, a banner of Ahold Delhaize USA, also saw their peaks on the Wednesdays before Thanksgiving in the past two years.

Placer.ai reported that Cincinnati-based The Kroger Co. and Quincy, Mass.-based Stop & Shop, another Ahold Delhaize USA banner, each had a single day that surpassed the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, though "Turkey Wednesday" in 2017 and 2018 did finish second and third for the period for both.

At Rochester, N.Y.-based Wegmans Food Markets, Dec. 23 had the highest visit rates, according to Placer.ai.

Considering Placer.ai’s report, it’s clear that many shoppers are rushing out the day before Thanksgiving to finish their shopping for the big meal. So it should be clear to retailers that it’s a great time to push their related private brands to increase sales.

A link to the blog can be found here.