Retailers Hoping To Get Early Jump On Consumers With Pre-Black Friday Sales
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Why wait until the day after Thanksgiving to get a jump on holiday shopping?
At least one retailer is hoping to find a lot of people who want to jump on online sales and get the jump on the competition.
CBS2's Amy Johnson went in search of consumers who might be biting on pre-Black Friday sales.
"It's the best idea. Instead of people spending all their money, at once," said Nino Sarkis.
But not all shoppers agree.
"I think it's too soon," said Michael Butler.
He came out of Toys 'R Us with little more than his daughter in the shopping cart.
"They're definitely trying to capture the sales they are losing throughout the year," said Butler.
Toys''R Us is advertising pre-Black Friday deals Friday and Saturday.
Best Buy is offering their early Black Friday deals in select stores on Saturday. And Walmart has gone online for their early Black Friday-like deals.
"Today we're just doing a little something special because we're letting customers know that every single day for the rest of the season, they're going to get ten new deals on our website," says Bao Nguyen, Walmart.com's Senior Manager of Media Relations.
He spoke to Johnson via Skype. He said Walmart's Black Friday-like deals will last for 90 days- and this isn't the first year they've kicked off the deals early.
"We've been bringing Black Friday-like prices earlier in the season for the past two years. Just because we know that's when our customers are looking for holiday gifts, they're searching more on our website beginning on November 1," said Nguyen.
"Black Friday is associated with some of the steepest sales that you see year round," said Lars Perner, assistant professor of clinical marketing at USC's Marshall School of Business.
"Walmart historically has been more of a traditional retailer," says Perner, "they wanted to cut in with Amazon and try to become a more viable online provider."
Perner says he's not surprised so many retailers have kicked off the holiday sales so early.
"If you can have an event at a time when most of the others haven't gotten involved yet, than you have an opportunity to attract a larger share of potential shoppers."
And as the saying goes, "it's never too early to start your holiday shopping," says Walmart.com's Nguyen.
