Target adds store hours ahead of Christmas, reduces special hours for seniors

Retail giant Target will be extending its store hours ahead of Christmas, with most stores opening at 7 a.m. and closing at midnight.

Extended hours are a normal practice for stores during the holiday season, they will be shorter this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, USA Today reported.

By extending its store hours, Target will be shortening its special hours for high-risk individuals such as seniors and pregnant women. At the moment, most Target stores set aside the first hour of Tuesday for those shoppers.

Most Target locations will close at 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve this year.

In a statement to USA Today, Target said, “Guests in need of last-minute gifts or other holiday items will have the option to place same-day pickup and delivery orders up to two hours before their local Target store closes on Christmas Eve.”

A Deloitte survey released in October found that consumers were expecting to spend less and shop at fewer stores this year due to the coronavirus. According to the survey, the average household is expecting to spend around $1,400 this year, a 7 percent drop from last year.

Apart from a change in spending, the holiday shopping season itself is expected to be shorter by one and a half weeks this year.

Reflecting the aversion to in-store shopping, Cyber Monday spending was around $10.8 billion this year, the largest internet shopping day for the U.S. in history, according to data from Adobe Analytics.