Walmart ditching doorbusters, starting store deals at 6 p.m. Thanksgiving
Corrections & clarifications: A previous version of this story misstated Walmart's Thanksgiving store hours. Most stores are open 24/7, but the Black Friday event begins at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving.
Walmart is remaking Black Friday by ditching doorbusters as part of a strategy to make holiday shopping easier for customers.
The retailer will once again start its Black Friday event at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving, but it won't be rolling out hourly deals on different items. Instead, it plans to simplify the crazed shopping period by providing nearly all of its deals both online and in stores at once. Online deals will start at 12:01 a.m. Pacific time on Thanksgiving, while all in-store deals will be available once stores open that evening.
The doorbuster has been a staple of Black Friday shopping, luring a steady stream of customers into stores in search of the newest and best deals throughout the evening. But it's also a game plan that can confuse and frustrate customers who must cut their holiday short, devise specific shopping strategies to make sure they nab an item, deal with huge crowds and risk items selling out, says Steve Bratspies, Walmart's chief merchandising officer.
"Our plan is fundamentally, make shopping easier for our customers," he says. "It’s about deals, it’s about availability and it’s about simplicity."
That's why Walmart is also hoping to satisfy deal-hunting customers by aiming to keep enough of the most popular items in stock, including TVs and toys. The company has bulked up on best-sellers to make sure products are available. It's also bringing back its one-hour guarantee, which guarantees special deals on five products — an iPad Air 2, Beats headphones, an Xbox One, an HP Touch laptop and a 55-inch LG TV — to anyone lined up in the designated spot in stores between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Either the product or a raincheck for guaranteed delivery before Christmas will be available.
Target, Macy's again opening at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving
With thousands of deals exclusive to online on Thanksgiving and updates to its app, Walmart is focusing heavily on Web and mobile shoppers — it expects 75% of its online holiday traffic to come from mobile this year. The mobile app now lets users shop the Black Friday circular by clicking and then purchasing products directly from the ads. Users also can browse store maps to see where Black Friday deals are located in any store and scan products in stores for reviews and the option to add the item to a shareable wish list. The app has also enabled mobile check-in for customers picking up online orders, which notifies an employee to prep the order.
"We’re going to make it easier when you get to the store to find what you want and hopefully get through it a little quicker," said Walmart U.S. CEO Greg Foran.
Walmart announced its plans Thursday as retailers appear to be settling in for a tamer holiday weekend this year. Most major stores are opening at the same time as last year, ending the trend of rolling it earlier each year. Many are also making it just as easy for customers to skip a store trip altogether by making the same deals available online.
Overall, Walmart has backed away from the deals frenzy of years past, announcing last month that it would be focusing more on offering discounts all season instead of sprinkling them throughout November and December. The softened approach may be a gamble given the competitive nature of the retail industry during the holidays and how tough it's become to achieve traffic growth, says Brian Yarbrough, an equity research analyst at Edward Jones.
"If Walmart does it this year and it's kind of boring and others have the doorbusters and Walmart loses a bunch of traffic, guess what they're going to do next year?" he says.