Walmart Is Moving ‘Black Friday’ To Thanksgiving So We Should Officially Start Calling It The Thanksgiving Sale

black friday 2012“Black Friday” has been a bit inaccurate as of late. While there definitely was a time when stores were slashing prices the Friday of Thanksgiving week, recently some stores have been opening as early as 11 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Well, Walmart is one upping that decision and kicking off their Black Friday 2012 sale at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving this year. Which means that just as you scrape those last leftovers into some Tupperware, you can then hop into your car as a family and buy tons of stuff.

So now that there doesn’t appear to be much of a Friday in Black Friday, can we all just start calling it what it is? A whopping Thanksgiving sale. Personally, I vote “Turkey Sale.”

Reuters reports that Walmart, the biggest retailer in the world, is not messing around this year. The company procures a reported quarter of their annual profits from holiday sales and they have planned their product pushing accordingly:

“We bought deep, very deep, and we bought deep on items that matter to our customers,” said Walmart U.S. Chief Merchandising and Marketing Officer Duncan Mac Naughton… “‘We got customer feedback that says ‘I like to shop earlier so I can go to bed earlier,'” Mac Naughton said.

The norm has generally been for stores to open their doors at midnight. But today’s customers would prefer to scramble over other customers as their post-dinner cardio, it seems. (I guess you really can load up on that gravy this year.) Kmart has been open on Thanksgiving for over two decades, but Sears is taking note and also opening on 8 p.m — staying open overnight until 10 p.m. on the actual Black Friday — a now relic of a slightly different consumer pattern.

(photo: littleny / Shutterstock.com)

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