Wal-Mart to make Black Friday a week-long event

Wal-Mart Stores Inc plans to make its Black Friday sales a week-long event, in place of the chaotic one-day sales that had come to mark the day after Thanksgiving.

Black Friday is the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the US and is held on the fourth Thursday of November.

It is often considered as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season with major retailers openening very early and offering promotional sales to kick off the holiday shopping season.

The ''New Black Friday'' would include five days of sales on Walmart.com and across stores, starting at 12:01 am online on Thanksgiving. The sale would run through Cyber Monday, according to the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company's statement.

''Black Friday has become Black Friday week,'' Duncan Mac Naughton, Wal-Mart's chief merchandising officer, told reporters yesterday. ''Our customers want to shop when they want to shop so we're trying to expand the times and product availability with them.''

He added, Wal-Mart would run waves of in-store sales at 6 pm and 8 pm on Thanksgiving and again at 6 am on Black Friday. The company's deals would start early on Thanksgiving to capture the growing number of shoppers looking for deals before sitting down for turkey.

Retailers including JC Penney Co, Staples Inc and Macy's Inc would open earlier than ever on Thanksgiving to lure shoppers. Best Buy Co too joined in yesterday, saying it would have over 1,000 stores open from 5 pm local time on Thanksgiving, with most remaining open until 1 am on Black Friday and the stores would reopen at 8 am Black Friday.

The Washington Post reported that Wal-Mart would launch its first round of in-store Black Friday deals at 6 pm on Thanksgiving Day, with the set of deals focused on toys, home goods, movies and video games. Later, at 8 pm, the retailer would open up electronics sales, which would include small items such as Fitbit wristbands and bigger ones such as Samsung Smart high definition televisions.

For shoppers who preferred to not venture out on the Thanksgiving holiday, still more deals would follow on Friday at 6 am, with 30 per cent discounts on some Samsung televisions and toys from Fisher Price and Monster High.

According to Wal-Mart, the rolling deals were designed to accommodate what it had heard from consumers about when they wanted to shop during the holiday weekend.

''Black Friday is no longer about waking up at the crack of dawn to stand in long lines and hope for the best. At Walmart, it's become a family shopping tradition where everyone shops at some point throughout the weekend,'' MacNaughton said in a statement.