Brad

It's looking more and more like this year's Black Friday will not look anything like anything we've experienced before. Most stores will be closed on Thanksgiving and it's doubtful we'll have the massive one-day sales with long lines and huge groups of shoppers. So rather than create new t-shirts which you might not even be able to wear on Black Friday, we're going to do something different this year. This year we are giving away GottaDEAL Mystery Shirt Prize Packs through our contests here on the forum and on social media (including our Discord server). These Mystery Shirt Prize Packs will each contain around 10-12 items including at least one "vintage" GottaDEAL or Black Friday t-shirt! I went into the archives and found nearly 40 different GD merch items from the past 15 years that found their way into these boxes. Besides the guaranteed t-shirt, all boxes are also guaranteed to contain a reusable GottaDEAL grocery shopping bag. Many boxes also include baseball caps, winter beanies, backpacks or other vintage GD swag. A few even contain one of the rare orange 2019 Black Friday shirts from last year. The GD warehouse was completely emptied to create these boxes as I crammed as much stuff as I could into each box. And if that weren't enough, one lucky box contains a $25 Amazon gift card and two lucky boxes each contain a $20 cash prize! T-shirt sizes range from medium to 3XL with a good number of each size available to start with. You will be able to specify your size preferences and those will be first come, first served so the first winners will have the best size selection. I had enough items to create 50 of these special prize packs so these will be more limited than our normal t-shirt and other giveaways. They also will obviously have a higher value than our usual prizes because of the sheer number and quality of items included. I know many of you will be disappointed that we're not doing new shirts again this year, but nothing this year has gone according to plan. I had a great design that I was going to use this year but it would be better saved for a more "normal" year. I'm going to try to supplement these giveaways with other fun contests on the forum as well for gift cards and other prizes so stay tuned. Look for the first mystery prize pack contest thread in the coming weeks.

DISCUSS BLACK FRIDAY & WIN AWESOME PRIZES! Here's how it works: Due to the "unique" nature of this year's Black Friday there may not be as much discussion of actual Black Friday sales, but we should still have some great discussion of all the other sales and deals that will make up this year's Black Friday "season" and I didn't want to not have a contest this year, so here we go: Through Monday, November 30th (at 11:59:59pm EST), you'll earn one entry into the contest every time you post in one of the Black Friday forums including this main Black Friday Discussion subforum and the Posted Ad Discussion subforum. As usual we're not going to require your posts to be a certain length to qualify or anything like that - we just want a lot of great discussion. We know there are times when a one-word reply is fine. All posts in all threads in these forums will count, including other contest threads. Be aware that it's pretty obvious if someone is attempting to "game the system" by posting repeatedly to get more entries. If that happens, we will give you ONE warning via PM. If we see the behavior continuing, you will be disqualified from winning a prize. This includes posting multiple times in a row in a single thread when one post would be enough, replying to many threads with nothing but "thanks!", etc... as I said, it'll be obvious if anyone does this, so don't do it. There is plenty to discuss without having to cheat to earn additional entries. So create interesting threads, reply to other members' questions, give your opinions on everything that is being discussed. This is a discussion board - let's have some interesting discussion here! On Tuesday, December 1st we will randomly select 5 winners from all eligible entries and you will win the prizes shown below: 1st Prize: $200 Gift Card to the Retailer of Your Choice 2nd Prize: Amazon Fire 7" 32GB Tablet with Case and Echo Dot Bundle 3rd Prize: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite E-Reader and Echo Dot Bundle 4th Prize: Google Nest Home Hub 7" Smart Display 5th Prize: Roku Streaming Stick+ 4K Media Player Prizes must be claimed by replying to the winner notification PM here on the forum by January 31, 2021 or they will be forfeited. And as a benefit to those who were here early this year, all the posts in the forums up until now aside from the prize club thread(s) will also count towards this contest. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me and I'll be happy to answer them. Disclaimer: this contest is not sponsored by or affiliated in any way with Amazon, Roku or Google.

Press release: https://kohls.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/kohls-rolls-out-new-loyalty-program-nationwide-rewarding Basically they are just renaming their Yes2You rewards program and calling the $5 rewards Kohl's Cash instead of Yes2You Rewards. Kind of disappointing as when they initially tested the new program in various markets they offered double rewards to Kohl's Charge cardholders, free shipping on all orders every day for Kohl's Charge cardholders and also talked about Black Friday early access to MVC cardholders. But in the end they stripped all those benefits away and there's really nothing new in this program.

Toys on Walmart.com: https://www.walmart.com/m/top-rated-toys Press release: https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2020/09/03/walmart-unveils-the-hottest-toys-of-the-2020-holiday-season-with-its-top-rated-by-kids-toy-list

Just thought I'd throw this up and see where everyone here is on some of this stuff.

I can neither confirm nor deny those dates

Update as of September we are down to 40 members. Here's the list: alirwin1985 angelbabymommy BFgrl79 bluebear Bopeep bossy1 chester5 cinder colemandawn4905 dantegirl Doresia Gator Pam gatorburg giz HanShotFirst HomeinKS ilikefree jesusluvu Kanyon71 Kash kellis4321 laddhorn LainieB len_mullen lucyismycat magickallight mcwalker momlori MsKate msyves riven3d rockpzazz smurfgirl speeddiva stationchief tracy0504 tyreejames vstevens111 wittenlover ytmomof4 If your name is listed, send me a PM with your name and mailing address so I can get your prize ready to be shipped. Just make sure you still post during September and October

https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2020/09/01/walmart-introduces-walmart

September 1st update: please PM me with your name and mailing address if you're still in the club so I can start preparing your pins for shipment

A couple years ago we created a GottaDEAL server on Discord for us to chat about Black Friday, deals or whatever else comes up. Here's the invite link: https://discord.gg/3hd2K5t For those who are unfamiliar with Discord, it is a free text and voice chat service. You can access it via their dedicated apps for phones or tablets, or through a traditional web browser. Once you sign up for an account you can join the GD server using the special invite link above and can chat with everyone else who has signed up. One advantage of using Discord over the old forum chat function is that you can view past conversation in the channels and not just what is happening while you are there so can come and go as frequently as you want without missing anything. Currently there is a #general channel for more off-topic chat and a #blackfriday channel for discussing Black Friday. There's also a #contest channel that we'll use for some giveaways over the next few months and a #deals channel where we'll be posting some of the hottest deals, in-stock alerts for hot items, preorder opportunities and more. We've had over 600 people join so far and we're hoping to do even more with it this year, so sign up if you haven't and we'll see you there!

Here are the dates (according to our records) when various ads were posted during the past 14 years: https://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/Dates And here are links to text lists of the items in the ads (at least the ones in our database) dating back to 2003: 2003 - 2004 - 2005 - 2006 - 2007 - 2008 - 2009 - 2010 - 2011 2012 - 2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018 - 2019 - 2020 And don't forget, you can also browse over 1,000 historical Black Friday ads going back to 2004 at https://www.blackfridayarchive.com

A couple "housekeeping" updates for the prize club: 1. I will start collecting addresses to send you your pins next month. Look for an announcement when you post in here during September. As with last year, you'll be on the honor system to post during the last month as you should have your prize before then. 2. Everyone who qualifies will now receive 2 pins instead of 1. I had to order a minimum of 100 and there are only 41 of you right now, so everyone gets 2

100 days until Black Friday (or possibly the day formerly known as Black Friday this year)

Here's a running list of the stores that have filed for bankruptcy so far this year (Stein Mart not added yet): https://www.retaildive.com/news/the-running-list-of-2020-retail-bankruptcies/571159/

Doubt it would help anyone but Amazon and Simon. They never opened any pickup areas at their existing warehouses so I wouldn't expect anything at the malls either. Just Amazon getting some cheap locations to use until they open even more distribution centers in those areas.

Lost one during July. Down to 41 members.

Don't think I haven't been thinking about it. Even got some custom fabric samples in: Like Gator Pam said, the main thing that would keep me from doing them is that everyone has their own favorite style/size/material and so it's tough to have a universal style that will work for everyone, and I don't want them to just sit in a drawer because people don't like wearing them. I have a big stack of various masks myself that I bought that didn't work for me. So I'll probably just have a very small quantity made in a couple sizes and those who want them can get one and that'll be it. No t-shirts this year (at least not new designs). This isn't going to be a "real" Black Friday and so it's not really something I want to celebrate with a shirt. Instead I'm going to do something else involving "vintage" shirts and other merch from my archives (of which I have plenty). More on that in about a month.

Between the stores having supply chain issues and the shipping carriers (especially USPS) having issues processing packages now during what should be a slower time of year, this is setting up to be a perfect storm come November and December. We've seen carriers become overwhelmed and have significant delays during December in previous years. Now with what should be way more online shopping and people shipping gifts, and possibly UPS and Fedex having to take packages that can't be trusted to USPS if their problems continue, it's looking like a nightmare scenario. The retailers starting their sales in early October are probably smart to do so. Whether shoppers will take advantage or wait for "real" deals later on (that may not come) is the question.

...and Kohl's https://corporate.kohls.com/news/archive-/2020/july/kohl-s-stores-to-close-on-thanksgiving-day-2020

Best Buy too https://corporate.bestbuy.com/best-buy-to-close-stores-on-thanksgiving-day/

Add Target to the list https://corporate.target.com//article/2020/07/early-holiday-plans?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=referral Also says, as I suspected, that stores will try to extend their big sales for the entire 4th quarter instead of focusing on BF.

I received a catalog from Sam's Club today for a new "savings week" sale next week that seemingly replaced their summer "one day only" sale. We could possibly see more of that kind of thing for BF season. Rather than a big one or two-day sale, they could have a week or more with the bigger deals spaced out so everyone isn't there on the same day.

July 30 update: I merged the individual store threads into this one main thread. So just post new closings you hear about in this thread rather than have individual threads for each store.

https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/7/7/21314767/walmart-plus-grocery-delivery-amazon-prime-membership-loyalty-program-walmart Walmart plans to launch a new subscription service later this month called Walmart+ that will cost $98 a year. It will include perks like same-day delivery of groceries and general merchandise, discounts on fuel at Walmart gas stations, and early access to product deals.

Now looking like the first week of October (and Q4): https://www.pymnts.com/amazon-commerce/2020/amazon-prime-day-tentatively-set-for-october/