Brad

Just as a reference, PS4 came out in November 2013 for $399. A year later, in the various 2014 Black Friday ads, the console was still $399 but depending where you bought it you'd have gotten either a free $50 gift card or 1-2 games included. So if that holds true this time, you won't save that much waiting a year. But by 2015 (2 years later), the PS4 dropped down to $299 in the BF ads and included a game or two. So it seems like 2 years is the magic point where you really save vs buying it on release.

Results of a pretty in-depth poll about holiday shopping this year: https://morningconsult.com/2020/09/17/holiday-shopping-black-friday-pandemic/

yeah no bundle deals likely. there may be bundles (gamestop had some last night) but the overall bundle price was basically the same as buying the individual items. just gamestop trying to force people who want the console to buy accessories and games they didn't otherwise want. guessing the holiday sales will still be pushing current gen bundles for one more year so if you need a ps4 or xbox one it's going to be a great opportunity to get one very cheap.

I'd say mid-October is a good guess

I usually put up some fall stuff right after Labor Day (did last week) and then Christmas right after Halloween. Nearly 2 months for each “season”. If there’s no “real” BF ads to worry about this year and I’m not as busy next month I might put up the Christmas lights earlier while the weather isn’t too bad.

How Retailers Should Prep for a Weird Black Friday https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-retailers-should-prep-for-a-weird-black-friday/2020/09/15/5d07bc7a-f758-11ea-85f7-5941188a98cd_story.html

Time for the first Mystery Shirt Prize Pack contest! We'll make this one simple. To be entered to win, reply to this thread with your answer to this question: What traditional aspect(s) of Black Friday do you think you'll miss the most this year? Contest will be open until 11pm ET on Monday, September 28th. I will then randomly choose 5 members who entered and you'll win a Mystery Shirt Prize Pack! Limit of one prize pack per member but if you win you are still welcome to enter future contests for fun. For more info on the Mystery Shirt Prize Packs we're giving away this year, see this thread. Good luck to everyone!

Seems like a lot of people are going to decorate earlier than usual this year due to *gestures broadly* ...everything. What about you GDers? Anyone actually start already? Waiting until after Thanksgiving?

No, just an example

They probably only asked the customers who were actually there Thanksgiving evening haha. "Hey, do you like being here? Sure you do - you're here!"

Add Macy’s to the list: https://www.macysinc.com/news-media/press-releases/detail/1639/macys-thanksgiving-announcement

Shipping out pins this week. Still need to get addresses from laddhorn, LainieB and vstevens111 so if either of you see this, please reply to the PM I sent you

Probably going to film on 2 days and edit them together into one broadcast.

https://www.macysinc.com/investors/news-events/press-releases/detail/1638/macys-and-the-city-of-new-york-announce-plan-for

We don't really know. Each store will do their own thing. Some will just have a normal weekly sale that week. Others might try some kind of shorter 3-5 day BF sale where they can call it a true BF sale but it spreads things out over multiple days. Some might have an online-only 1- or 2-day sale. The issue will be if any of these longer sales have really hot doorbusters, they're still going to draw big crowds when the store opens on the first day of the sale as people don't want the deals to sell out before they get there, so if stores are serious about trying to avoid massive crowds, they really can't offer the kind of deals (at least not in stores, online is fine) that traditionally draw those types of crowds. So basically say you're Target, you can't say you're concerned about having big crowds but then have a $99 50" 4K TV in your week-long BF sale and not expect people to line up the night before the first day of the sale. The whole thing is going to be very interesting.

I think they just want to have it in Q4 so it's part of their big 2-3 month string of deals. Prime day into pre-Black Friday into Black Friday into Cyber Monday into Last Minute Deals.

Don't forget Sears and the Bon-Ton family of stores which also were big anchors at many malls (at least around here).

They can do that, but why get people to visit your site on one day when you can get them to visit multiple times over many weeks/months? I'd have a bigger long-term sale online and then maybe a handful of one-day-only online doorbusters each day of the sale.

Yeah this seems to be the mall owners doing what they can to stop yet another big anchor store from leaving many of their malls. The only question is whether they are content to allow JCPenney to continue losing money as long as they stay open and bring people (and tenants) to their malls, or if, now that they own it, they'll make more significant changes to try and turn things around for JCP.

https://www.walmart.com/plus/mobile-scan-and-go You can now sign up for a 15 day trial. Reports say when you sign up for the trial, they offer an extended 30-day trial if you answer a few basic survey questions.

I can't see any of the major stores doing a one-day-only Black Friday sale. I think the optics would be terrible, as if they are saying "sorry, but the only way to get the best deals is to fight massive crowds on this one day". I think what Home Depot is doing is smart because they are telling their customers not to hold off on buying stuff because they are waiting for a big one-day BF sale. If people know there is no big blowout BF sale coming, they'll be more likely to spend during these earlier October/November sales.

https://corporate.homedepot.com/newsroom/home-depot-holiday-announcement-2020 For the first time ever, our Black Friday prices will be available throughout the holiday season. Savings will start in early November and last through December, both in-store and on homedepot.com. Say goodbye to one day of frenzied shopping and enjoy Black Friday savings all season long without the stress and crowds. CNN story: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/business/home-depot-black-friday/index.html

JCPenney update: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/09/09/jcpenney-sale-simon-property-group-brookfield-property-partners/5761731002/ https://ir.jcpenney.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/622/jcpenney-reaches-agreement-in-principle-with-brookfield

Yeah they typically do the 30%/free shipping combo once or twice per month for about a week, but they had initially planned to let cardholders get free shipping at any time. Would've been nice to have free shipping during those weeks where the 30% deal wasn't happening, but I'm guessing they want to push their store pickup services instead.

As I've done the past few years, I've opened the various subforums here on the day after Labor Day to unofficially start our coverage of the Black Friday "season". Obviously this year is going to be very different but we're going to try to keep things on the forum as close to normal as possible. I just posted the thread for the main forum contest we have each year along with details of the Mystery Shirt Prize Packs that we'll be giving away over the next few months. We'll also be starting our 2021 Prize Club thread in November. A slight change for this year due to the circumstances is that the "Posted Black Friday Ads" subforum has been renamed the "Posted Ad Discussion" subforum. We used to only have threads in that subforum for each Black Friday ad we posted but this year I'm going to post threads for many of the additional sales and catalogs that get posted on the Black Friday site, whether they take place on Black Friday or not. This includes things like toy catalogs, weekend sales and whatever else the retailers come up with this year to make up for not having a traditional Black Friday week. Online shopping is going to be huge in Q4 this year and while we don't know what the overall quality of the deals will be, we know the quantity of sales and deals will be the highest ever. If you haven't already, you can sign up for our Instant Deal Alerts to get emails containing the best of the best deals and we'll also be using the Black Friday mailing list to notify you about new sales and deals. Hopefully we'll still get a lot of discussion and have some fun on here, whether or not we have any actual Black Friday ads to discuss or not