(KSN) – After announcing that it will be holding three separate Black Friday sales events, Walmart has released ad scans from its first two Black Friday Deals for Days events which kick off on Nov. 4 and Nov. 11.
The retailer will kick off its third event the day before Thanksgiving. No ad for that event has been revealed yet.
Top deals on Nov. 4 event
- Onn. 65-inch 4K UHD Roku TV for $228.
- Apple Airpods (Gen. 2, wired charging case) for $99
- Instant Pot 6-Qt. Duo Crisp for $79
- iRobot Roomba 670 for $177
- MSI GF65 Gaming Laptop for $799
- HP Pavilion i5 GTX 1650 Gaming Laptop for $449
Top deals on Nov. 11 event
- TCL 55-inch Class 4K UHD Smart TV for $148.
- Onn. 50-inch Class 4k UHD Roku Smart TV for $128.
- Shark IQ Robot vacuum RV1000 for $199 ($100 off).
- Lenovo IdeaPad 3 (4GB RAM, 128GB storage) for a low $149.
- HP 14-inch 2-in-1 Touch Teal Chromebook for $179 ($120 off).
- HP Pavilion 15.6-inch Horizon Blue Laptop for $379 ($160 off).
For the first time, the discounter will also offer shoppers curbside pickup at its stores for Black Friday orders.
The details offer the first glimpse from a major retailer of what a reinvented Black Friday will look like during a pandemic. Other retailers like Macy’s have said that their Black Friday deals will be spread out and will encourage more online shopping, but none have 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. Other stores like Target and Walmart 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% to 25% during the six key weeks of the holiday season compared to 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% of all holiday traffic, compared to 46.5% 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 noted that Walmart was forced to rethink Black Friday when the pandemic was declared. He noted that many of the holiday items destined for the stores were rerouted to the e-commerce fulfillment centers.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.