As Thanksgiving approaches with two weeks to go, retailers and consumers alike are making their plans to get ready for the shopping event of the year, Black Friday.
Already, major retailers such as Wal-Mart have mobilized to gear up for the gateway day to the holiday season, announcing that their doors will open at 8 p.m. on Thanskgiving Day, two hours earlier than last year.
Among the items that patient shoppers will be able to purchase at that time: an Apple iPad 2 with Wi-Fi for $399 plus a $74 Walmart gift card; an Emerson 32-inch LCD TV for $148, down from the original $228; and an LG Blu-ray Disc player for $38, about half off the original price.
Walmart will also offer customers guarantee card for items that are sold out, which must be paid for by midnight and registered online to get at the same price.
"We know it's frustrating for customers to shop on Black Friday and not get the items they want," Duncan MacNaughton, chief merchandising and marketing officer at Walmart's U.S. division told the Associated Press.
Already, More than 30 retailers' ads have already been released to deal sites. On Monday, Macy's released a "sneak peek" of 15 of its Black Friday deals, though the department store giant is keeping a lot of the details secret until the right time.
"We have not authorized any release of information at this point beyond what was included in yesterday's news release," Macy's spokesman Jim Sluzewski told USA Today. Sluzewski says it will be hard for consumers to know what is accurate "when the information does not originate from Macy's."
Shoppers are also looking to get a head start on the holiday season. Ciara Hobson told the Chicago Tribune that she doesn't plan to start shopping Thanksgiving night, but she said she'll be up before dawn to catch sales at Express, a clothing store.
"Just knowing that everybody is doing the same thing I'm doing on the same day feels like the beginning of Christmas," she said.