E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSStores are opening earlier than ever and the mad dash for Christmas bargains is already on, and retailers are desperate for shoppers' business. NBC's John Yang reports from Chicago's Magnificent Mile.
The Thanksgiving holiday isn't stopping some shoppers from lining up at major U.S. retailers trying to get a jump on Black Friday.
Many stores including Toys R Us will open as early as 9 p.m. local time Thursday while Macy's, Target, Best Buy and Kohl's will open at midnight. Walmart slated “doorbuster” deals for 10 p.m. even though they were open Thursday along with Old Navy and Kmart.
The National Retail Federation says over 150 million people will spend money on Christmas-related gifts this year. And many are looking for markdowns.
Bargain hunters were already lining up, some having camped out since Wednesday night.
In Pittsburgh, for example, TV station WTAE found many people already waiting in line outside the Monroeville Best Buy at 1:30 p.m. Thursday. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette displayed a photo of three friends in a tent outside at a Homestead Best Buy.
In Indianapolis, http://www.wthr.com/story/16117792/shoppers-hit-stores-early-in-hopes-of-black-friday-deals">NBC station WTHR reported the Meijer grocery and department store was jammed at noon. Some were shopping for last-minute dinner items, but others had lined up at 6 a.m. for a deal on iPads.
Anthony Pierluissi told WTHR that waiting in line for the deals is a family tradition - not just for shopping. “We make it a family thing," he said. "We all go out together and get stuff."
Paul J. Richards/AFP - Getty Images
Brent Hart, 26, camps out Wednesday in advance of Black Friday on the sidewalk of the Fair Lakes Best Buy store in Fairfax, Virginia.
Brent Hart, 26, began camping out Wednesday on the sidewalk of the Fair Lakes Best Buy store in Fairfax, Virginia.
He was fifth in line and planned to purchase a $200 42 inch flat-screen TV and a $299 laptop. Hart is a military contractor leaving in December for Afghanistan and said he wants the laptop to stay in touch with his family.
NBC station WVTM in Birmingham, Ala., found more than two dozen people lined up at the Homewood Kmart store when it opened at 6 a.m. CST for pre-Black Friday deals.
Retailers concede the pressure is on.
"At the end of the day, we are trying to respond to what our customers want to do, and they are telling us that's when they want to shop," Mike Vitelli, president, Americas and enterprise executive vice president of Best Buy, told Reuters.
Two malls are testing a new system that tracks shoppers' movements from store to store by monitoring 'pings' from their cellphones. KNSD's Tony Shin reports.
Leave a Comment:
Don't bring those credit cards...!!....Be careful....watch what you spend.."Happy Holidays"...
Black Friday?
It's more like Black and Blue Friday.
It's a jungle out there, and some people have even been trampled to death.
I'll stay home in my Turkey Coma.
Happy Holidays Everyone!
Corporate America has ruined the holiday and turned Thanksgiving and Christmas into a boxing match. It is not about gratitude and family - it is about what we can get for ourselves and who can get the best gifts. So much for the spirit of Santa Clause who gives unconditionally.
Black Friday! What a joke, spend-up Emerica, big daddy needs your tax dollars. BUY BUY BUY crammed into your brain every waking hour. Just say No.
They are not going door to door dragging people to the stores. They are open so people that want to can go shop. I feel bad for the people that have to go to work at the stores but, they have a job to go to.
"At the end of the day, we are trying to respond to what our customers want to do, and they are telling us that's when they want to shop," Mike Vitelli, president, Americas and enterprise executive vice president of Best Buy, told Reuters.
Bullhocky! Most surveys show people DON'T want to shop on Thursday. Shoppers are there because they are open and offering the best sales. If they offered the same sales on Friday a.m., THAT IS WHEN FOLKS WOULD SHOP. Retailers are simply trying to steal business from each other - not serve the customer.
Don't participate!!!
Oh forgot, LAY-AWAY. Of course retailers want you to buy early (at higher prices) than wait until last minute for sales or worse yet, after-Christmas sales. Amazing how we are being herded.
Hey! How come that guy standing by the tent impeding peoples right of way on private property is not being pepper sprayed/shot with rubber bullets/billy clubbed/arrested or having his tent stolen? Isn't he creating a health hazzard?
You are mixing apples with oranges..............
that would be a funny photoshop though, putting the cop with the pepper spray in a picture shooting people camped out in front of best buy. totally meta man.
Apples and oranges? How so? The only difference is the message. They're still blocking the sidewalk. How does he not create the same health hazzards? His s%#t doesn't stink? Do you think if he had a sign that said OWS that they wouldn't make him leave? Why can he camp on a sidewalk and somebody else can't? What if they are OWS and just want to buy the few doorbuster Items the store stocks for bait so they can return them in January. Nothing illegal about that except the camping part.Do they have permits to do that? Or would he have to be protesting something because they don't issue permits for squatting? What gives him more rights than any other American? Who decides who stays and who goes and on what grounds do they make their decisions? How do you tell which ones the apple and which ones the orange if they don't have a sign? I'm sorry but either they all stay or they all go. You decide, I couldn't care less. But purely from the health hazzard point of view I'd have to say they all go. I don't protest and I don't buy or accept Christmas gifts anymore. I went to one of these early morning events once. I left two and a half hours early for work, arrived near the parking lot, saw several hundred people lined up in front of the store to buy the five laptop computers that the store had and that was it. I got so disgusted that I swore I wasn't doing that crap anymore and I haven't. It's a pretty nice holiday without all the buy buy buy B.S. If I sound biased it's because I don't like seeing American citizens abused for execising their rights.
He is more than welcome to stay there. Look what it got the company having the sale.......... free advertising! Apples and oranges! You can cop an attitude all you want, you don't accept Christmas gifts and I could care less who has permission to hang out and do what their little heart desires.
Really!? Camping out for days to get the TV/laptop bargain? I hope the stores enjoy the publicity and in watching customers debase themselves. Frankly, just knowing there is already a herd camped out waiting to pluck the few available items is enough to keep me at home.
Shopping is the way of the devil.