Walmart Announces Altered Plan for Black Friday Deals
Walmart says it will spread out its traditional one-day Black Friday deals over three weekends in November in an effort to reduce crowds in its stores during the coronavirus pandemic.
The nation’s largest retailer said Wednesday that more of its doorbuster deals will be reserved for online in an effort to steer more shoppers away from its stores.
Walmart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, will kick off the deals online Nov. 4, with new deals in stores on Nov. 7.
The second event will begin online Nov. 11, followed by a similar sales event in stores Nov. 14.
It will wrap up its discounts online Nov. 25 with new discounts in stores Nov. 27, the day after Thanksgiving and the traditional Black Friday.
The details offer the first glimpse from a major retailer of what a reinvented Black Friday will look like during the pandemic.
Other retailers, such as Macy’s, have said their Black Friday deals will be spread out and will encourage more online shopping, but none has given specific details.
The day after Thanksgiving has been losing its luster as the unofficial start to the holiday shopping season for the past several years. That’s because retailers started to usher in deals on Thanksgiving and then increasingly offering holiday discounts throughout the month.
Still, despite the competition from other days, Black Friday has remained the busiest day of the year, according to ShopperTrak, which uses cameras in a range of stores to count traffic.
This holiday season, many stores are starting their holiday deals in October. Amazon, which usually holds its annual Prime Day sales event in mid-July, delayed it to this week. Target and other stores have joined in and are holding holiday sales that align with the event.
Many stores, including Walmart, will not open their doors on Thanksgiving Day this year.
As shoppers avoid physical stores and focus more on online shopping, foot traffic at retail stores is expected to be down 22 percent to 25 percent during the six key weeks of the holiday season compared with the same year-ago period, according to a forecast from ShopperTrak.
And ShopperTrak expects the 10 busiest days this year will account for 34.2 percent of all holiday traffic, compared with 46.5 percent in 2019.
As a result, the typical holiday traffic peaks will flatten, with more days having importance throughout the season, according to Brian Field, a senior director of the retail consulting practice at ShopperTrak, part of Sensormatic Solutions.
Field said he still expects Black Friday will be the busiest day of the year.
The challenge for stores will be to get shoppers to buy earlier.
“If the deal is right, customers are willing to shop earlier,” Scott McCall, chief merchandising officer at Walmart, told The Associated Press.
McCall said Walmart was forced to rethink Black Friday when the pandemic was declared. He said many of the holiday items destined for the stores were rerouted to the e-commerce fulfillment centers.
[jwplayer EvrhZwZr]
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
