Pre-Black Friday, a New Shopping Tradition

A new retailing tradition for the holidays, pre-black Friday, has emerged in 2010. Pre-black Friday holiday sales event, which this year is November 21 through 24, is right before Thanksgiving, November 25. “American consumers will look back on the holiday season of 2010 as the start of a new holiday shopping tradition, and the end of an old one,” writes retail columnist and consultant Barbara Farfan. She continues that pre-black Friday sales are as good as Black Friday’s because…

if Amazon.com(AMZN), Wal-Mart, Office Depot (ODP), Office Max (OMX), Lowe's (LOW) and Home Depot (HD) pledge to match any advertised Black Friday prices like they did last year, then where's the challenge for the Black Friday competitive shopping pros?  It seems like the 2010 holiday season is going to be similar to the 2008 holiday shopping season - a relentless onslaught of discount one-upping, which may send consumers into promotional overload.  The difference between 2010 and 2008 is that the need to bribe consumers to consume should not be catching any retailers or inventory control specialists by surprise this year. [via About.com]