Black Friday actually starts this Saturday when Amazon (AMZN) will cut Halloween revelry short by kicking off a month of holiday deals.
While Amazon has typically started holiday deals at the beginning of November, this year will feature more products and more frequent deals, says spokeswoman Julie Law. Amazon will increase its deal of the day feature to include two deals a day every day from Nov. 1 until Dec. 22.
It will also increase the frequency and number of products available as "lightning deals" from Nov. 1 until the official Black Friday on Nov. 28. Lightning deals are products that go on sale for a limited amount of time each day; closer to Black Friday, deals go up every 10 minutes, Law says.
The deals will be for products in higher demand around the holidays, such as cookware, electronics, and toys.
· Office Depot (ODP) and OfficeMax will also start holiday deals this weekend, with savings on laptops and touchscreen computers from Nov. 2-15. The stores will also have Cyber Monday deals every Monday in November, the company said Thursday.
· This is the first year Sears (SHLD) will offer Black Friday deals two weeks early during a friends and family sale on Nov. 9. Certain items in apparel, appliances, tools and footwear will be available at a steeper "Black Friday" discount on top of the 5% to 15% discount that's part of the friends and family event, a spokesperson says.
While Black Friday may have been seen as the official start to the holiday season in the past decade, it's now been relegated as more of a fun social occasion as retailers push sales earlier into November in order to win over customers, says Allison Paul, head of U.S. retail and distribution at consulting firm Deloitte.
Especially as online and mobile shopping becomes both more accessible and convenient, the significance of Black Friday will continue to diminish, she says.
"For the investment you have to make in time and basic hardship, the value equation is not there for everybody," Paul says. "There's no getting around the fact that Black Friday and some of those other days –it's a madhouse."
Deloitte's holiday shopping survey of 5,000 consumers, out this week, found that just 9% plan to shop on Black Friday and that most plan to shop in December or other days throughout November.
Paul also says retailers are probably "hedging their bets" against potentially bad weather in December by spreading bigger and better sales throughout the season; last year shoppers were likely deterred, and store sales suffered, by major storms in the Midwest and Northeast over two of the weekends leading up to Christmas, she says.
In other holiday shopping news, Kohl's followed Macy's lead and announced Thursday it will open two hours earlier on Thanksgiving, at 6 p.m.
