Shoppers take to Columbia stores for early Black Friday sales

Sales stretched out over time, offered in-store and online.

Old Navy kicked off the holiday season with five days of sales early this month along with extended shopping hours.

Tesco and John Lewis are both installing queuing systems in expectation of large crowds, while the supermarket giant has assured customers it will have enough security and stock in stores following scuffles over limited numbers of items past year. The retail chain REI went farther.

With about half of the nation shopping on Black Friday, there’s a good reason why so many deals are free this year, reported Parade.

But there were some die-hard consumers who were willing to give up the entire holiday for a great sale.

More than three-in-four consumers have smartphones and 41 per cent will use them to make online purchases this year, according to a holiday survey by Deloitte University Press that predicts the Friday after Thanksgiving will surpass Cyber Monday as the most popular online shopping day this year. It is shame that stores open so early.

Downtown Pleasanton is also on board with its version of Black Friday.

And if anything, it looks like the online holiday shopping sales bug is creeping in earlier and earlier.

The Air Hogs Helix video drone is advertised for $75 (regular price $109) putting it at an ideal price point for first time drone owners.

Overall, the National Retail Federation estimates that about 135.8 million consumers will be shopping this weekend, compared with 133.7 million a year ago.

In Pleasanton, small businesses having between 1 and 100 employees provide more than 23,000 jobs. Most of the major retail giants are already offering incredible bargains for just about every brand and size of televisions available. So if you stuffed yourself on the stuffing and plumped up on the pumpkin pie, Gold’s Gym has created “Trim The Fat Friday”.

Deals include hundreds of pounds off TVs and significant reductions on laptops, tablets and cameras – with some deals boasting more than a third of the price off the original charge. Parades held on Thanksgiving concluded with the appearance of Santa Claus to signify that Christmas was coming.

As people are preparing for their Thanksgiving feast, shoppers are planning to get the best deals for Black Friday. In the US, it is celebrated on the 4 Thursday of November. Last year, mall operators in NY state threatened shops with fines for not opening on Thanksgiving, in cases where the anchor store of the mall they were in wanted to open.

“The holiday shopping season starts in October”.

Black Friday is supposed to be bigger than ever in the United Kingdom this year, with British shoppers expected to spend more than £1 billion on Friday November 27.

Let’s face it, though: Black Friday isn’t going away.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL): As of the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the iDevice maker has not made its Black Friday sales public.

Wal-Mart: Wal-Mart built its holiday strategy around making things easier for its customers, with the biggest piece of that being that all its Black Friday deals will also be available on its website beginning at 12:01 a.m. PT on Thanksgiving morning.