Dive Brief:
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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has announced its concept of a “New Black Friday,” which includes five days of deals.
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Its “New Black Friday” event begins Thanksgiving Day (a Thursday, of course) at midnight online and at 5 p.m. in many stores, and lasts through Cyber Monday.
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The retailer said it will be running extended hours and waves of deals throughout the five-day event. Sales in stores will start at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day and again on Black Friday at 6 a.m.
Dive Insight:
This year there seem to be two types of retailers — those making a point of being closed Thanksgiving Day and those making a point of being open. Wal-Mart has chosen to make nearly the entire week a “Black Friday/Cyber Monday” event.
“Black Friday has become Black Friday week," said Wal-Mart chief merchandising officer Duncan Mac Naughton. "Our customers want to shop when they want to shop so we’re trying to expand the times and product availability with them.”
Indeed, this looks to be a way for brick-and-mortar stores to fight the advantages of e-commerce (which is always open). But it’s really not clear if there’s truly an advantage to all this when it comes to sales.
