===========================Wal-Mart Jump-Starts Discounts for Holidays
By MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: October 31, 2007 NYT
In what is shaping up to be the earliest holiday shopping season ever, Wal-Mart Stores says it will offer door-buster discounts this Friday, three weeks before they are traditionally unveiled on the day after Thanksgiving.
The giant discount chain is expected to announce a plan today to sell five major products — like a $350 laptop — beginning at 8 a.m. on Friday in a bold effort to jump-start holiday shopping two days after Halloween.
The move is likely to put growing pressure on Wal-Mart’s competitors, like Best Buy and Toys “R” Us, to begin marking down merchandise well ahead of Nov. 23, known as Black Friday because it was historically the day stores turned a profit, or went into the black.
The pre-Thanksgiving price-cutting underscores how worried the retail industry is about consumer spending this season. With the housing market in a slump and energy prices high, industry analysts expect retail sales in November and December to grow at the slowest rate in five years.
In the phenomenon of “creeping Christmas,” stores like CompUSA and Gap have begun opening their doors at midnight on Thanksgiving to drum up business, delighting some bargainhunting consumers and irritating some others who bemoan the earlier-than-ever start to the season.
But no retailer has ever tried to single-handedly move Black Friday, considered the biggest shopping day of the year.
more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/busin ... f=business
