Brad

Time for the next t-shirt contest! To be entered to win, reply to this thread with at least one item you are hoping to score a deal on this year and the price/discount you hope to see in the ads (or online) for it. Feel free to post more than one item if you'd like. Contest will be open until 9pm ET on Sunday, October 7th. I will then randomly choose 10 members who entered and you'll win a Black Friday t-shirt. As always, you can only win a maximum of one shirt per year. This includes the shirts won by members in the t-shirt club. However you are welcome and encouraged to continue entering contests even after you win a shirt And don't forget that if you want to order more Black Friday shirts, you can do that here! http://i.gottadeal.com/main/images/merch/2018shirts.png

The 7 winners are: radritch Love4Fashion lilwywy Kash drod58 AuntieJul j2wice Look for a PM from me to claim your shirt. We'll see if anyone was correct when the first ad is posted. Next contest coming soon...

I checked back and we posted deals for both the 38mm and 42mm models last year so they did have both.

Link: http://deals.gd/qosgd New versions of the Echo Dot, Echo Plus and Echo Show, plus new items including a microwave, wall clock, vehicle device, subwoofer, OTA DVR and more. Of course everything is at regular price so you're better off waiting for Amazon's BF sale to start.

I'm sure they'll have some kind of online sale but I wouldn't expect much as far as deals. If they manage to open a handful of physical stores they might have some kind of ad but we're probably talking under 10 stores total. The new owner also said the physical stores will only be open Thursday through Sunday each week, so this is nothing like the old Bon-Ton - different merchandise, different prices, etc... As for being an affiliate, the new owners also own DirectBuy which doesn't have an affiliate program, so I don't have high hopes (and even if they do I don't think anyone will buy anything from the new company). It seems like they want to focus on services like interior design and fashion advice and make their $ from those services rather than offering deals like Bon-Ton used to.

I'm pretty sure it was limited to one coupon per Target.com account so yeah, open multiple accounts if you need to.

Yeah this year BF is the earliest it can be so there is over a month between BF and Christmas which retailers absolutely love. Next year it’s the opposite as BF is on the 29th which is the latest it can be and retailers lose one of the valuable weekends between BF and Christmas.

These promotions have started: http://www.gottadeal.com/Deal/175977

Looks like the site is full of items that are sold many other places and can be drop-shipped from the manufacturer or distributor. It's not like they have warehouses full of merch waiting to ship. Didn't see anything with prices that couldn't be beat elsewhere either. So other than the name/logo, there's really nothing the same as the old company.

New site is up: http://www.bonton.com

From September 16th through September 22nd: Get a coupon for $30 off a $100 qualify purchase when you are approved for debit or credit REDcard in-stores and Target.com between 9/16-9/22. The coupon will be mailed to approved cardholders with their REDcard and will be valid through Oct 31, 2018. Excludes alcohol, Apple products, Bose, CVS clinic and pharmacy, DSLR cameras and lenses, Elf on the Shelf, Gift Cards, Google Products, GoPro, LEGO, LG OLED TV, Mobile Contracts, Prepaid Cards, Sonos, Target Optical, Tylenol Pain Relief & Weber. To qualify for coupon discount, the total must not include excluded products. Existing cardholders will receive an additional 10% off (in addition to the 5% off you normally receive). This offer is only available in Target App and may require your REDcard to be included in your Target.com profile. One time use only. Valid between 9/16 – 9/22. Not valid at Target.com. Excludes alcohol, Apple products, Bose, clinic and pharmacy, dairy milk, DSLR cameras and lenses, Dyson upright vacuums, Elf on the Shelf, Fitbit, Gift Cards, Google Home/Mini/Max, GoPro, JBL, LEGO, LG OLED TV, L.O.L, Surprise House, Mobile Contracts, Nintendo Hardware & Switch Games, Power Shave, Power Dental, Prepaid Cards, PS4 Hardware, Samsung TVs, Sonos, Target Optical, Tile, Traeger, Tylenol Pain Relief, Vitamix, Weber, Xbox One Hardware.

https://apnews.com/5f6506372f364a24b8894cf902eee601 "Amazon.com said the trees, wreaths and garlands will go on sale in November. Some will qualify for Prime free shipping, and Amazon will offer pre-orders so shoppers can choose a delivery date." "A 7-foot Fraser fir from a North Carolina farm will cost $115, according to an Amazon holiday preview book. Also listed are a $50 wreath and a $25 red-leafed plant with a decorative candy cane speared into the soil."

I can't see that happening anymore. The outrage of 4-5 years ago over Thanksgiving openings has nearly all subsided and it's just accepted now. Keeping stores open one extra day costs virtually nothing compared to the extra sales they get that day.

As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

DISCUSS BLACK FRIDAY THIS YEAR & WIN AWESOME PRIZES & GIFT CARDS! Here's how it works: Through Monday, November 26th (at 11:59:59pm EST), every time you post in one of the Black Friday forums (such as this main Black Friday Discussion subforum, any of the store-specific subforums, Posted Black Friday Ads or Online Black Friday subforums) you'll earn one entry into the contest. 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 gift card. I don't expect this to be an issue (it wasn't during the last few years), but I wanted to make it clear that myself and the mods will be watching for any abuse. Any member who is banned is obviously no longer eligible to win the contest either. 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 your way to more 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, November 27th I will randomly select 5 winners from all eligible entries and you will win the prizes shown below: 1st Prize: Apple iPad 9.7" 32GB WiFi Tablet 2nd Prize: Nest Outdoor Smart Security Camera 3rd Prize: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite E-Reader 4th Prize: $100 Gift Card to the Retailer of Your Choice 5th Prize: $50 Gift Card to the Retailer of Your Choice And as a benefit to those who were here early this year, all the posts in the forums up until now aside from the t-shirt club thread will also count towards this contest. Also look for opportunities to earn double entries as we get closer to Black Friday. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me and I'll be happy to answer them. Notice: this contest is not sponsored by or affiliated in any way with Apple, Amazon or Nest.

Just posted the first t-shirt contest. I know all 49 of you still in the club will likely get shirts for being in the club, but feel free to continue entering the contests. You won't "officially" win a shirt from this thread until November, so you can win one sooner in the other contests during the next 2 months.

Time for everyone's favorite contest - the first ad prediction contest Simply reply to this thread with your guess for the date and store for the first ad to be posted on the Black Friday site. Only post one guess and if you edit your post more than 10 minutes after your initial post, your entry won't count, so make your best guess now! For help, view this chart for 2006-2017 dates: http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/dates.php I'll accept entries until Wednesday September 26th at 9:00pm ET. At that point I'll randomly select 7 people who posted their prediction and they'll win a GottaDEAL Black Friday t-shirt! If someone ends up being correct on both the date and store for the first ad, I'll send you a $10 Amazon gift card. If more than one person is correct, you all win gift cards. If there are more than 10 winners, the gift card value will be $5 instead of $10. We'll use eastern time zone to determine which day a late-night ad is posted on. Good luck to everyone! IMPORTANT: If the first ad comes out before the contest ends, there will be no additional winners beyond those who already had their guesses posted, but you can still reply to the thread with a comment to have a chance to be chosen randomly for the 7 t-shirts. As always, you can only win a maximum of one shirt per year. This includes the shirts won by members in the t-shirt club. However you are welcome and encouraged to continue entering contests even after you win a shirt http://i.gottadeal.com/main/images/merch/2018shirts.png

Shirts are now sold out!

46 of 49 have posted so far this month

As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

Yeah it's been 4 years since we did a shirt with that line on the back so I figured it was a good time to bring it back. Note that this year's shirt also doesn't explicitly mention "Black Friday" anywhere in the design which is kind of intentional as well.

Definitely interesting. I expected someone to buy the intellectual property and re-open online as many bankrupt store names have done, but I'd be very surprised if they actually follow through with actual stores. It's tough in the current retail climate to start a brand new department store chain from virtually nothing, even if you have recognized brands to use. They could follow the latest trend which is to have stores that also serve as your mini-warehouses for online orders. But Bon-Ton had so many locations and I can't see a new company wanting anywhere close to even half of those.

OK, exclusively for you club members (and anyone else who reads this thread ), here's this year's BF shirt design. If you've been following this thread the design of this shirt won't be much of a surprise. Front: http://i.gottadeal.com/main/images/merch/2018_front.png Back: http://i.gottadeal.com/main/images/merch/2018_back.png Many of you wanted to bring back the classic tagline on the back, so we did that along with a simple "15 years" design on the front. Also, exclusively for club members, you'll also receive a pair of these matching zipper pouches: http://i.gottadeal.com/main/images/merch/2018_zipper.png Use them to store money, cards, tech accessories - whatever you can think of. You'll each get two of these and they won't be available anywhere else. I'll open up orders if you want additional shirts on Monday.

I plan to start the first t-shirt contest and open the other BF sub-forums next Monday the 10th. I'll also start taking orders for shirts that day as well as post the annual BF forum giveaway details, so that day will kind of be the official start of the BF season here on GD. I removed last year's ads from the BF site this morning and I'm working on a bunch of other stuff behind the scenes to get ready for this year with an even larger focus on the online sales as many of you have discussed in here.