Black Friday Deals

Target, Walmart and Staples are preparing for a mass flood of shoppers the day after Thanksgiving. However, Best Buy has stood out among many consumers due to the expectation of personal electronics and house appliances to be included in the sales.

The ad detailing Black Friday offers finally leaked via a website featuring holiday listings from multiple retailers.

The Christian Post has prepared a guide to what Best Buy will have to offer.

For a new laptop, the store is offering a Samsung with Intel Pentium processor and a 15.6-inch screen for $299.99 and a Lenovo 15.6-inch Laptop with 2GB RAM and 250GB HDD for $179.99.

For monitors, there is 21.5-inch Acer Flat-Panel LCD Monitor costing $89.99 and an HP 23-inch HD LED Widescreen monitor for $119.99.

Tablets have been selling like hot-cakes throughout 2011, and Best Buy has announced in the ad that all Apple iPad 2 tablets will be on sale, though the exact terms are not yet known.

Alternatively, there is also the Toshiba Thrive 10.1-inch screen tablet for $279.99.

Barnes & Noble's NOOK eReader will be available for $79.99, down from $99.99.

Among cell phone offers, there is the HTC - DROID Incredible 2 Mobile, free with the purchase of a 2-year contract with Verizon, and HTC Wildfire S for $99.99 with no contract.

In addition, the 6-page catalog is filled with bargain-price house appliances, miscellaneous electronics and other merchandise.

Among those are a 42-inch Sharp LCD HCTV for $199.99 and a 24-inch Dynex 1080p 60Hz LCD HDTV for $79.99.

Walmart is getting an early start to Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. The discount retail giant released its Black Friday ad Thursday, announcing that this year the store’s doors will open at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving night for discounts on home items, clothing, and toys.  Electronics will go on sale two hours later, at midnight.

Among the items you can grab at 10 p.m. after your feast: a $67 ping pong table, a slew of DVDs for $1.96 apiece, and a 4-quart Crock-Pot for under $10 (regular price is closer to $25).

Perhaps as surprising as the deals is the timing of the ad for Walmart Black Friday 2011. Last year, Walmart didn’t announce its Black Friday deals until Nov. 22, meaning this year’s revelations are coming a full 12 days earlier than before. But the early Walmart announcement is just the latest in a trend of stores getting an earlier and earlier start to the Black Friday rush: For the first time, Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic are opening their stores at midnight on Black Friday, joining Macy's, Kohl's, and Target, which have done it before.

“Thanksgiving night openings are much more common now,” says Dan de Grandpre, CEO of dealnews.com, a website that tracks sales at large retailers across the country. “Deals are going to be much better at that time. But you have to get up earlier and earlier, or those stores will be picked over.”

The hubbub over the early Walmart announcement comes in the wake of projections for a fairly average holiday shopping season. Erik Johnson, an economist with IHS Global Insight, is predicting a 4.2 percent growth in overall holiday sales over last year. “To put this in perspective, 2010 holiday sales were up 5.2 percent and 2009 sales were down 0.4 percent,” Mr. Johnson says in e-mail.

Some are predicting more shoppers, however. According to Business News Daily, a recent consumer survey from the digital technology advertising company Social Vibe is projecting a 52 percent increase in the number of Black Friday shoppers from last year.  That means longer lines and much bigger crowds, which may be part of the impetus for retailers to extend their hours.

But Mr. de Grandpre insists that bigger crowds don’t necessarily mean more buying. “There will be a lot of window shopping,” he said “Participation in Black Friday will go up, but there will be more of a shift from in-store shopping into online shopping.  The growth of online shopping has been many times higher than in-store shopping.

Johnson agrees. “E-commerce as a percentage of overall retail sales hit an all-time high in the second quarter of 2011, at 4.6 percent,” he says.

Online retailers, too, are getting in on the Black Friday earlier than ever: Amazon.com has already launched a “Countdown to Black Friday” section of its site, with early discounts on a wide array of products including cameras, TVs, DVDs, and toys.

According to de Grandpre, however, the pre-sales usually can’t hold a candle to the real thing.  “Stores use terms like Black Friday and Cyber Monday to draw in shoppers, but that doesn’t always mean good deals,” he says. “I’d be skeptical of discounts that sound modest, or that have a range.”

He uses terms like “up to 30 percent off” as an example.

“Just because a store has a big sale doesn’t mean the specific items are all that cheap. Macy’s has a 20 percent off sale basically every Friday. It’s better to look at specific items for big discounts.”

Still, if you wanted to get a jump on the holiday rush this Veteran’s Day weekend, for instance, there are certain benefits. “It’s a contrast of convenience and savings” versus the Black Friday rush, de Grandpre says. “Black Friday is not a fun day to shop. The sales reps are always frazzled, and people are aggressive. Of course, online sales sort of take away those convenience concerns, and a lot of online sales these days are identical to what’s in the store.”

And there are some decent deals to be found over the coming weekend.  Home improvement retailer Lowe’s is offering deep discounts on major home appliances ($1,100 off a Wirlpool washer/dryer pair, for example), and competitor Home Depot is releasing its actual Black Friday prices this week.

You can also find bargains on clothing, at retailers like Kohl’s and JC Penney, which is offering a wide variety of discounts this weekend, most notably 50-60 percent discounts on diamond jewelry.

“Given the hassle, it's not really worth getting up at 3 a.m. on Black Friday for a sweater,” de Grandpre says. “You want to go for a big ticket item, like a TV or a laptop.”

Ready or not, Black Friday is right around the corner.

Stores are in full swing preparing, but are you ready for the holiday shopping season?

Some shoppers have been saving up all year for this; others said they're only asking for necessities on their Christmas wish list.

Retailers and shoppers are bracing for Black Friday. Retailers are hopeful sales will skyrocket.

"I'm a shopper, so for me Black Friday is great," said Lori McCune.

It's the legendary rush after Thanksgiving Day.

"Love it, looking forward to it," McCune said.

And retailers are also looking forward to some positive cash flow this year.

"We're looking at a small increase and it will be spread throughout the whole store, so we're looking for a pretty good year," said Meijer Store Manager Rick Zeeff.

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The National Retail Federation expects holiday sales to increase 2.8 percent this year. That's drastically down from a 5.2 percent increase last year. The 10-year average only shows a 2.6 percent increase.

"I don't think it’s going to be a crazy big year because the economy is not going to allow that," Zeeff said.

"I’m not sure they're splurging, but they buy a few unique gifts and stuff that people need…" said shopper Karen Guerrero.

She plans to shop smart.

"If you need shoes and jeans and stuff you get throughout the year, that’s Christmas," she said.

But on the other hand, people are dishing out the dollars.

“We don't have kids, but nieces and nephews and they're like my own so we splurge on them, buy them pretty much whatever they want if I can swing it," McCune said.

McCune fits right in to what's expected from Americans this year.

The Wall Street Journal said we'll spend about 17 percent more this year than last – the average person is expected to drop $831 on gifts this season, that's $121 more than last year.

Surveys show people have some extra cash this year, but they plan to be more conservative in how they spend it.

Some retailers said a sale is a sale, no matter how large or small the purchase is.

"They may not be buying those big screen TVs, that’s ok," Zeeff said.

Stores are getting more competitive this year – Wal-Mart and Target are opening on Thanksgiving night for Black Friday specials.

The Meijer on Bremen Highway will start their special sales at 4 a.m., that's an hour earlier than last year.

If you’re looking for work, seasonal hiring is slim pickings right now.

A few stores have some spots left like Macys, Hobby Lobby and Target. Stores recommend to call then and apply right away.

We’ve already seen this year’s Black Friday ads for Best Buy and Staples. Now we’re getting a sneak peek at some of the deep discounts Target will be offering on November 25th, 2011.

Here are a few of the highlights.

• Acer 10″ netbook for $157
• Acer Aspire One 722 11.6″ notebook w/AMD C-50 for $197
• Amazon Kindle Keyboard 3G with special offers for 85
• Apple 8GB iPod touch with $40 Target gift card for $195

Some of the deals are listed as “doorbusters,” which means that only a limited number of devices will be available to shoppers on a first-come, first-served basis.

Personally I’ve never felt the need to wake up extraordinarily early and fight my way through the crowds to save a few bucks on Black Friday… but I know people that swear by the practice. If you buy enough items on the busiest shopping day of the year you can end up saving a lot of money… assuming you were going to buy those products anyway and the alternative was paying full price.

Black Friday is already looking pretty crazy this year, and Gamestop won't be doing anything to reduce the amount of consumerist insanity permeating the American consciousness. If anything, the fact that its sales flier proudly boasts that limited edition Zelda 3DS on its front cover indicates a clear and unmistakable aim to misbehave, in a metaphorical, capitalist sense.

We'll save you the headache of an unwieldy bulleted list by telling you that the long and short of the sale is widely similar to other retail offerings: Discounted 360s and PS3s ($149 and $199 respectively), recent titles discounted by $10 to $30, etc. Check out the 12 page flier for complete details, and when you're tempted by these impressive discounts, remember how small and innavigable the average Gamestop is on a normal day, let alone on the busiest shopping day of the year.