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Black Friday in Massachusetts & Wal-mart sales times?


clm101798

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I know a lot of the stores are advertising earlier and earlier opening times - some on Thanksgiving itself. But they can't do that in Massachusetts (Blue Laws). Employees cannot clock in until after midnight so stores are re-scheduling their opening times.

 

From an article on boston.com: "In recent days, Walmart, Target, and Macy’s have all retreated from previously announced midnight promotions at their Massachusetts locations. Macy’s now plans a 12:30 a.m. opening on Black Friday, Target is scheduling a 1 a.m. start, and Walmart has pushed its kickoff to 4 a.m."

 

So most of the stores like Target will just be starting their sales later than the ad papers online say, but what about Wal-mart? They are having staggered sales advertised for 10pm on Thursday, midnight and 8am Friday. How are they working that in Massachusetts?

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I know a lot of the stores are advertising earlier and earlier opening times - some on Thanksgiving itself. But they can't do that in Massachusetts (Blue Laws). Employees cannot clock in until after midnight so stores are re-scheduling their opening times.

 

From an article on boston.com: "In recent days, Walmart, Target, and Macys have all retreated from previously announced midnight promotions at their Massachusetts locations. Macys now plans a 12:30 a.m. opening on Black Friday, Target is scheduling a 1 a.m. start, and Walmart has pushed its kickoff to 4 a.m."

 

So most of the stores like Target will just be starting their sales later than the ad papers online say, but what about Wal-mart? They are having staggered sales advertised for 10pm on Thursday, midnight and 8am Friday. How are they working that in Massachusetts?

I'm in NH but near the MA border. It might be worth the sales tax if I can't find what I want at my NH stores at 9-10pm. Lol. I'd like to know if this is true also. :)

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i started a thread about this earlier but I think it got moved into the Hours thread. I was planning to shop in NH (but not 'til the next morning) but now I'm thinking it might be worth the tax to just stay in MA and have a better chance of getting the stuff I want since the NH stores will start opening at 9 p.m. the night before and will probably be wiped out by the time I stroll in at 5:00 a.m.
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Last year it was all over the place with opening times. Even the same retailer had different opening times at different locations. ToysRUs opened at midnight, so did the Gap/Old Navy, Wrentham outlets. So, even with the laws they can still manage a midnight opening. Walmart/Kohls opened at 3 or 4 am. I was planning to shop in New Hampshire this year but the staggered openings here might work out better as long as they are clear.
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I don't know about the other stores but I know that the Wrentham outlets is technically a 12:01 opening to comply with the blue laws. I don't know what they do about the employees that have to work. I doubt that they really don't report to work until 12:00 and have 1 minute to get the store ready to open. I suspect that they are there earlier, but just don't punch in.
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Wrentham outlet pays a hefty fine to the town of Wrentham to do this. I have friends that work there and HATE this..esp the Coach store employees. Last year 495 was backed up for miles in both directtions. Traffic started at about 7 pm and never stopped for > 24 hrs. No thanks...that place is not a bargain imho.
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All the stores in Mass do everything different. You need to speak to your local store manager at each store to find out the exact opening. For example, I live in Ludlow, MA and always go to Chicopee Wal-Mart. Rumors were circulating that the store was opening at 12:30 am last year. As so, people lined up extremely early and waited for hours. However, I had spoken to an associate prior to the sale and he stated they were not opening doors until 4 am the earliest. You really need to find out for sure the times whichever stores you plan on going too as it can be a confusing day and you could lose out on products u may want.
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