PANAMA CITY — “Gray Thursday” is the new “Black Friday.”
This year, big box stores will open their doors even earlier Thanksgiving Day and offer more deals to keep up with the customer demand and stay competitive in the market.
Jenna Dalessandro, general manager of Best Buy in Panama City, said the choice to move opening time from midnight to 6 p.m. was based primarily on customer feedback.
“We’re just trying to respond to our customers,” Dalessandro said. “This is a fluid thing for us. It changes when we see how they respond to what we’re doing.”
In fact, a majority of larger stores and shopping centers in the Bay County area will be open today.
Target moved its opening up one hour to 8 p.m., and Pier Park and the Panama City Mall also will open at 8 p.m., up several hours from their opening times last year.
Kmart will be open for 41 hours straight beginning at 6 a.m. Thursday, with doorbuster deals until 5 p.m., a far cry from last year’s 8 p.m. Thanksgiving opening.
Wal-Mart will be open all day Thursday, and will begin offering early doorbuster deals at 6 p.m. Wal-Mart also is the only retailer in the area offering a one-hour, in-stock guarantee from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. and will be handing out rain checks to customers if they sell out of a specially priced item.
The deals
This year has seen a push for big box stores to publish Black Friday ads earlier and offer more “doorbuster” items, which are offered at a low price for a certain period of time, or until the store runs out.
Dalessandro said that while Best Buy’s prices are similar to last year, the store will offer three doorbuster events this year instead of just one.
Best Buy also posted its Black Friday ad earlier this year to allow shoppers ample time to prepare. The most coveted products include a 65-inch Samsung LED HDTV for $1,000 and a 55-inch LG LED HDTV for $500.
“We’ll have a very limited quantity of those; that’s what the people will camp out for,” said Dalessandro, also noting Best Buy received more stock than in years past. “These are the serious shoppers, the value hunters. They’re die-hard.”
At Target, the big-ticket item this year is a 50-inch Element LED HDTV for $229, 62 percent off the retail price. Last year, a similar television sold at the store for a doorbuster price of $349.
Some big-ticket items at Wal-Mart include a 60-inch Smart LED TV from Vizio for $688 — the same price as this time last year — and a 32-inch LED HDTV for $98, which sold for $148 last year.
Last year, Dalessandro said eager customers wrapped all the way around the Best Buy building to participate in Best Buy’s doorbuster event.
“It’s like organized chaos,” she said. “We plan for so long and we hire an extra 20 percent of our team. That’s what we’re here for, we’re ready to go.”
Despite earlier openings this year, Dalessandro said she still expects Friday to remain the biggest shopping day of the year.
“It’s exciting because people are in a good mood,” she said. “They’re kicking off their holiday season.”
