"With everything that's going on, there may be no Black Friday [shopping day] at all. I can't imagine retailers buying inventory to stock up for an event designed to pack hundreds of people into a store. There are so many risks to that."

Scott Rankin, principal and national consumer and retail strategy leader with KPMG US, in an interview with CNN Business, as noted in the report this week, “Mall owner Simon Property Group will keep stores closed on Thanksgiving.”