mcwalker

Just went on Staples site to look for something. Clicking on individual stores in the find a store section has a special green posting after the regular store hours that says: Open Thanksgiving 8pm to midnight! Open Black Friday 6am to normal close.

The Peebles ad has been posted and I just finished typing up all the item listings. There are some pretty good deals.

I have always been to Kohls on BF, never first or second but later, and have generally done well despite the lines. The longer answer to the question is to wait for the key ads to come out, make a shopping list here on GottaDeal http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/ShoppingList, and decide which store should be your first, second, etc. Then see which of your key items you can order online by Thanksgiving morning or so, and then make a final decision on which store to make your first stop.

And this one is in Living Color no less! (The BF ad is greyscale only.)

Valued, but not valued enough to give Brad the ad before others get it.

Not such a big deal now that they are releasing it early themselves. By Monday we should be seeing at least one ad released every day (and more on some days).

For the first time in a while, I have all the electronics I "need", but this year I will be looking for a decent 5.1 speaker combination. Other than that, it will probably be a bunch of small items for me this year. (Actually, I have more than I need, but all that I want. Unless I see a really great deal...)

The simple answer to the question is that at this time of year (from around early to mid October), I hold off on buying ANY non-essential / non-urgent item until I see what is in the Black Friday ads (up to a few days before Thanksgiving). Only then I start buying things that I want or need that did not turn up in the ads. So, if you can wait until the ads are out, do so. But -- don't drive around with an infant that is not in a proper car seat even one time! Buy that (or borrow one) now if you need it.

I expect that the clock that they are showing refers to the start of online deals and it calculates to midnight eastern time (when you consider that we will be changing clocks between now and then). I also expect that stores will open sometime (much) later. Just guessing.

Kind of interesting "silhouette" approach to drumming up interest.

That's an interesting approach to let them get in with the early competition Thanksgiving evening, but allow their employees to get some sleep in the middle of the night when there would likely be a big lull in the shopping anyway. 9:00 PM is also little better than 8:00 PM or earlier (but midnight or later would be even better.) As tinkrbel asks, also curious whether they will have different doorbusters at 9 PM (or 12:30 AM), and at 6:00 AM, to try to draw shoppers back. In the past, I have usually picked up some smaller doorbusters at Staples that didn't require you to get there too quickly after they open (memory sticks, cards, anti-virus software, and such).

Wow! I guess the old Oklahoma law was meant to protect small stores from predatory pricing, but I didn't realize any US state was so out of date on this.

Back to the original question: it would also be worth checking out the Macy's, JCPenney, and Kohl's ads for deals on comforter sets.

Opening times are normally for all local time zones. Online deals often start at at time that differs from the store opening time (and is obviously uniform, not time zone dependent). Brad will have information on the times that online sales go live closer to Thanksgiving week.

Doesn't he have to be there BEFORE they open? Maybe they are opening at 9:00?

Ssshh! Don't tell them that. (They are listening--or at least the NSA is listening.) Sneaky! I like it!

A little surprising since other retailers are increasingly expanding their free shipping offer (even if they haven't reached the $25/$35 minimum order level yet). Many of my Amazon orders would be over $35 anyway and for me this mainly means trying to bundle orders into $35 groups (of free shipping items), rather than paying $79 per year for Amazon Prime after a 30 day trial.

My 12/13 year old daughter is also into these colorful bands and has asked for some for her birthday (11/14) or Christmas and I think they are an in fad for young girls right now. The original brand for these is Rainbow Loom by Chroon's Design LLC but there are copycats. Available at Michaels and I put one of these on the e-bay contest thread. http://i1006.photobucket.com/albums/af182/mcwalker59/RainbowLoom.jpg

Model trains (still, but my standards have gotten better and cost has risen), GI Joe (original size), Hot Wheels, Legos, table games like foosball.

I plan to wear the GD 10 Year shirt that I won in the guess the first ad & date contest. Unfortunately in New York I have to wear a good coat over it, which hides the front except when I can unzip the coat and hides the back except in the rare occasions that I might take the coat off entirely in a store. I also have older GD t-shirts in good condition, which I might loan out if anyone, like my nephew, joins me on Black Friday this year (but it looks like I will be working alone this time).

The Macy's ad has some furniture on pages 16, 18 and 19. Mattresses on page 17. No idea how these prices compare to sales at other times.

The entire listing for Macy's is now live on the site at: http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/BlackFridaySales/Store/Macys You can add items to your personal GottaDeal Shopping List here:http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/ShoppingList

Based on multiple news reports this morning, JCPenney will open at 8:00 PM Thanksgiving. They opened at 6:00 AM Friday last year. http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/2013/10/j-c-penney-plans-8-p-m-opening-on-thanksgiving-day.html/ http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2013/10/black_friday_2013_jc_penney_open_thanksgiving_day.html

I hope (but am not holding my breath) that they also put in place better crowd control methods on BF to go along with the increased sales volume they are looking for.

Yes, Black Friday 2013 was great! Not much room in the back of that Delorian for stashing my purchases though, with that 1.21 Gigawatt converter in it. (I corrected my typo. Map is updated to 10/16/13, not 12/16/13.)