Black Friday – just a sale? a few shoppers starting earlier, rethinking holiday

Appliance and electronics retailer hhgregg will open even earlier at 4 p.m. Thursday.

What’s more, Black Friday is no longer the busiest shopping day of the year as stores roll out discounts earlier and spread them out over more days, industry experts said.

Bob Eisenstadt, director of the University of Louisiana at Monroe’s Center for Business and Economic Research said he expects holiday sales to be strong locally because low gas prices are opening up disposable income for consumers.

In the case of clothing company Lululemon, the athleisure brand is taking advantage of the name given to the day after Thanksgiving to launch its limited edition all-black collection.

Big box stores are offering their usual in-store doorbuster deals, but this year they’re also offering the same deals online.

Part of the fun of Black Friday is a few stores like to reward and encourage early queuers by handing out vouchers, fliers or even lottery tickets.

With deals abound before Black Friday…these bargain hunters can start checking off their holiday shopping lists. Most retailers also offer their Black Friday deals online as well. Mail-in rebates are a lot more work than, say, ordering something from Amazon on Black Friday and getting it in the mail two days laters… Vice President of Amazon Consumer Marketing Steve Shure clarifies that a seemingly endless amount of time, more clients shop for deals on Amazon from the comfort of their own home and they keep on making that procedure considerably more advantageous for them. “Black Fridays are great for people who love the big get-togethers, but it’s not for me anymore”.

The “Bring back the holidays” commercial represents a growing backlash of “Black Friday Eve”.

More than 56 percent of shoppers started shopping in early November, an increase from 54 percent past year and 49 percent in 2008, according to the federation.

This year, the mall will close to customers between midnight and 6 a.m. on Black Friday.

Gaulding had not released his Black Friday prices as of press time, but shoppers can visit the Shawel’s Facebook page to stay updated. Past year more than 50% of all e-commerce traffic during Cyber-5 – from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday – occurred on mobile devices; 68% of all Double 11 sales were on mobile devices.

“I would never get involved with that mess”, she said.

As far as our miscellaneous Black Friday picks go, Walmart is also discounting the Beats Studio headphones ($169, $10-30 off depending on color), the Fitbit Flex ($59, $20-30 off, also depending on color), and the Canon Rebel T5 DSLR camera ($399, $100 off).

“Some people do it with you their family in a group like my family does”, said the Wilmington native.

“‘If we’re just talking about people who live and shop here anyway, then what we’re talking about is just moving the money around”, Eisenstadt said.

This year, Walmart is offering comparable deals in both its retail store locations and its website. Wal-Mart, for instance, will offer 96 percent of its in-store deals to online customers starting Thanksgiving morning.