NEW YORK: Walmart said 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 a pandemic.
The largest retailer in the US said on Wednesday that more of its doorbuster deals will be reserved for online, as a way to steer more shoppers away from its stores.
The discounter, 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 on 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 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 percent to 25 percent 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 percent of all holiday traffic, compared to 46.5 percent in 2019. As a result, the typical holiday traffic peaks will flatten, with more days having importance throughout the season.
