Black Friday technically falls on Friday, Nov. 24 this year, but holiday sales began as early as mid-October at several stores.
Best Buy, the first retailer to announce its Black Friday programming back in October, is taking the most aggressive approach. Its four-part holiday calendar began on Oct. 27 with Black Friday Early Access for Members, a weekend of exclusive access to select deals for paid members of its My Best Buy program, then moved into a general Black Friday Deals for Everyone event on Oct. 30. The full Best Buy Black Friday sale began on Friday, Nov. 17, and will be followed by its Cyber Monday Savings Event on Sunday, Nov. 26.
Best Buy’s early Black Friday deals will be supplemented with short sales and hard-to-find releases on its smartphone app as part of its new Best Buy Drops program for the holidays. It also hosted a new series of livestream shopping events featuring popular gift ideas and limited-time deals on the first three Wednesdays in November.
Target came up to bat next, just before Halloween, unveiling its plans to offer four weeks of early Black Friday deals ahead of the actual holiday. Exclusive discounts and Deals of the Day for members of its free Target Circle loyalty program will be peppered in throughout the holiday season.
Walmart ran two Black Friday Deals events in Nov.: The first sale started online on Wednesday, Nov. 8, and continued in stores on Friday, Nov. 10; the second one went live on Wednesday, Nov. 22 before popping up in stores on Friday, Nov. 24. Both events include three hours of early access for paid (non-trial) Walmart+ members.
Meanwhile, Amazon geared up to host its own extended Black Friday sale which began on Friday, Nov. 17, and will shift into its Cyber Monday sale on Saturday, Nov. 25. According to its press release, new deals will drop “as often as every five minutes during select periods” during the events, and a handful of limited-time doorbusters will be available during the New York Jets/Miami Dolphins football game on Black Friday (available to stream on Prime Video).
