Where to Find the Best Thanksgiving Day Sales

Plenty of thought, marketing and advertising goes into the holiday shopping season, as retailers gear up for their best sales days of the year.

Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you’ll have consumers interested in not only the gift-giving season but also shopping for themselves to find the very best deals on anything from electronics to toys, and truly everything in between.

But as much as we enjoy and hype the shopping days that are Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you can’t overlook how Thanksgiving Day has emerged as a means for retailers to get the “jump” on competitors by opening their doors or featuring online sales that start even ahead of the event that is Black Friday and days before Cyber Monday leaves computer screens overheated and keyboards and mouse clicks figuratively on fire.  

In recent years, Black Friday and Cyber Monday continue to score billions of dollars of revenue for retailers, whether consumers are standing outside on Friday morning before the sun sets or sitting next to their tablet, phone or computer ready to click “buy” or keep adding to that shopping cart with one online buy after another.

The proof about how successful these two shopping days are is hard to ignore.

Black Friday boomed last year with billions of dollars in sales, both in store and online.

One of the more telling and impressive feats of this holiday shopping day is just how quickly sales were made, most likely a sign consumers are ready, willing and more than able to justify spending and, more importantly, saving money.

Last year, consumers spent about one million dollars per minute during the peak buying season of Black Friday, with about 3,000 orders per minute; the final number for online shopping on Black Friday lone was five billion dollars, an increase of 18.3 percent both on Black Friday online buys and also about 3 billion spent on Thanksgiving Day as well.^[1]

The want and need to shop on Black Friday and the holiday weekend in general isn’t hard to understand with deals that tip the scales at 40 to 70 percent off, whether you’re talking about appliances, clothing or laptops, not to mention door busters that see even larger savings.

About 30 percent of all Black Friday shoppers say they’re active on that day, and about 63 billion dollars spent in November and December in 2016.^[2]

The 2017 holiday shopping season (November and December) and kicked off on November 1 through December 24 and highlighted by the Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday holiday weekend saw an overall increase versus 2016, up 4.9 percent, and the best performance for a holiday season since 2011; online holiday shopping was up 18.1 percent with increase in electronics and appliances (7.5 percent) and a 5.9 percent increase on jewelry as a last minute buy, for example, and a general propensity for consumer to spend more than they originally budged.^[3]

The trend of spending over the holidays continues to grow from both a popularity standpoint as well as dollars and revenue for retailers.

Thanksgiving Day sales have seen an increase in sales, as previously detailed with the 3 billion spent last year, and about just about 20 percent of people saying they’re interested in shopping on Thanksgiving, per reports in 2017; it should be noted that same survey showed 70 percent of people shopping on Black Friday, 20 percent on the Sunday after the holiday and another 48 percent on Cyber Monday with 164 million people expected to shop from Thursday through Monday.^[4]

While the 20 percent number for Thanksgiving doesn’t compare to Black Friday, you can’t ignore that want and need from consumers to get out even after the meal has settled and the shopping is set to commence.

More of a younger crowd seems to like the idea of Thanksgiving Day stores opening and sales starting earlier than Black Friday.

Ages 18 to 29, roughly 29 percent, strongly favor a Thanksgiving Day shopping trip versus the 60 and older crowd, 5.6 percent, saying that they’re not in favor of it, with ages 30-44 liking the idea to the tune of 22 percent favoring it, and 45 to 59 age group at 12 percent agreeing with that move.^[5]

A few stores that you can count on being open for Thanksgiving include Cabela’s, Kohl’s, Kmart, Macy’s, Target and Walmart.^[6]

If you can muster the energy to start shopping even after ingesting pounds of turkey and piles of potatoes and pumpkin pie, you can equally enjoy a mound of savings if you’re searching out the very best Thanksgiving Day sales deals.

Here are a few retailers and products you should be paying close attention to this Thanksgiving to maximize how much you save as part of your holiday weekend of buying:

Best Buy: Opens 5 p.m. Thanksgiving Day with serious door busters

Funny enough, in the “Black Friday” ad for Best Buy they refer to it as a “Shop Black Friday Door busters” sale but mention that doors open at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day in certain markets.

A few of the highlights for Best Buy include $300 on the new Samsung Galaxy Note, the Apple iPad mini 4 at $150 off, and Dell laptops starting at $399, down about $200, not to mention a 43 inch Toshiba LED Smart 4K TV only $129.99.^[7]

Costco: Stores closed on Thanksgiving Day, but online deals that can’t be missed

Costco gives consumers the best of both worlds.

They’re adhere to a policy of physical stores being closed on Thanksgiving Day but they’re giving you the option to shop early online deals that start on Thanksgiving Day.

If you’re one of the many who eat far too much on the Thanksgiving holiday and want to loosen your belt literally after a big meal and then loosen the straps on your wallet, too, this is your place to start.

Costco has the Apple iPad 32 GB in Gold for $250, a $70 savings, along with several laptop deals to choose from: The Dell XPS 13 with 4K touch display down from $2,000 to $1,500, Lenovo Ideated, 330 Core i5 processor with 12GB of memory and 1 TB of a hard drive for only $450, down $100.^[8]

Walmart: Open Thanksgiving Day with in-store and online deals galore

Walmart deals on Thanksgiving Day deals both in the store and online, and the fact that the largest retailer in the world is all about opening on Thanksgiving Day isn’t surprising. In addition to Amazon, Walmart is the top retailer when it comes to the holiday shopping season, both online and in store.

You’ll get deals on Thanksgiving Day at Walmart, not surprisingly, and it starts with the fitness lover on your list.

The Fitbit Versa is available on Thanksgiving Day for $150, 25 percent off the regular retail price, in addition to the iPhone RX, which when purchased you get a $300 Walmart gift card to use, and a Sharp or TLC 65 inch 4K TV for $400.^[9]

Target: Open Thanksgiving Day, and it’s all about technology driven gifts

Target had an uptick in sales that put it in the same conversation with Amazon and Walmart last year, although not quite at that level but closer.

That most likely will continue with several door buster deals for Target on Thanksgiving Day, starting with all things gaming: The Nintendo Switch Mario Kart 8 deluxe bundle for $299, and a 55 inch Element Smart 4K UHD TV for $199.^[10]

The Fitbit Versa smart watch, same as the one being offered by Walmart, is featured at Taret as well on Thanksgiving Day per the same report for $1 less at $149.

Macy’s: Open Thanksgiving, and shopping specials are already off and running

Macy’s is open on Thanksgiving but if you check out their online presence already, you’ll see deals are running rampant already.

A quick glance at Macy’s web site shows discounts of nearly 50 percent on some items, whether you’re talking about a women’s Guess jacket, men’s Alfani Suits or bedding for the entire household; the promo codes are equally as potent as well with additional 20 percent off online orders, and offering free pickup in some stores as early as the next day.^[11]

Macy’s also is all about free items for its customers, with approximately a dozen of them free after mail-in rebates as part of their Thanksgiving and Black Friday plans, with 10 of those 12 only at the $10 price point, whether you’re talking about tote bags, slippers or graphic T shirts, just to name a few, along with deals on the Apple Watch Series 3, down about $80, kitchen appliances for $7.99 after a mail-in rebate, and $29.99 bedding marked down from nearly $200.^[12]

Macy’s also doing what Macy’s does best and that’s give additional discounts when you hit a spending mark, such as $20 off $50 or $10 off $25 as part of even more incentives to its customer base.

You do have a contingency of people who are opposed to shopping on Thanksgiving Day, probably about half of the population (52 percent to be exact), and that is somewhat understandable if you view Thursday’s turkey day as a means of celebrating, visiting and enjoying that family time, too.^[13]

But even with that 52 percent figure, you have millions that bear down and search out the best deals possible, with no disrespect to the holiday or those who choose not to spend but rather a penchant for possibly finding ways to save on a holiday budget that needs to be kept within certain means or spending limits.

That said, if you’re opting for a Thanksgiving Day spending spree, so be it.

The average consumer is going to spend $1,000 give or take this holiday season, and making sure your dollar stretches farther and earlier in the season is also and always part of that initiative.

Plenty of retailers online and in stores are perfectly fine with delivering deals to your doorstep or giving you all the incentive in the world to leave and hit the pavement with passion and poise to put together a shopping game plan and receipts, much like your Thanksgiving meal, that leaves you full, satisfied and not massively stuffed with sentiment that you went terribly overboard.