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Black Friday sales: How deep will the discounts be this year?
Big discounts await shoppers during Black Friday sales the day after Thanksgiving. But later in the season, price cuts are unlikely to be as deep as they were last year.
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Take Disney Stores. In a new twist, the company started showing its Black Friday promotions via YouTube on Nov. 12. It will also open 125 stores at midnight on Nov. 27; last year it opened 100 at that hour on Black Friday. "It's a great way to spread the traffic out, manage our flow," says Jim Fielding, president of Disney Store Worldwide, who went out at midnight last year to watch shoppers at one of the stores.
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Online retailers, too, plan to lob promotions at customers. Ed Foy of eFashionSolutions in Secaucus, N.J., is planning "timed" promotions, in which shoppers have a set amount of time to respond to a sale or an offer of free shipping.
"If that doesn't work, you can just adjust and make it free shipping on everything," says Mr. Foy, whose company sells brands such as Baby Phat, DKNY, and Rocawear.
Some retailers, including Disney, are making greater use this year of social media such as Twitter and Facebook to tell people about their store sales.
Many shoppers, though, still prefer to scan the newspaper ads on Thanksgiving Day to see what's on sale on Friday. That's the case for Ken Klestinec of San Diego.
"I'll pull the ads that are interesting," he says. In the past, he has been enticed by ads for flat-screen televisions and tools.
"I am probably not the best target. I'm a buyer, not a shopper," he says. A buyer, he explains, goes to the store and buys a specific item; a shopper might go for one item but leaves with several.
By that definition, Melanie and Jessica Simmons, sisters from West Chester, Pa., are shoppers. They have been getting up at 3 a.m. on Black Friday for years, ready to hunt for bargains. They say they will hit Target and Wal-Mart, plus the strip malls.
"It takes the sales to motivate us," says Melanie. "We like to get crazy deals for good stuff."
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See also:
Black Friday 2009: Are Black Friday’s years numbered?
On Black Friday sales 2009, can Amazon compete with Wal-Mart?
Wal-Mart Black Friday sales for 2009: The story behind the leak
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