The first retailer to officially announce the details for Black Friday 2020 is, surprisingly, The Home Depot. In previous years, they have been one of the last retailers to release their Black Friday ad and plans for the shopping holiday. This year, they’re one of the first to give customers a real glimpse into what this year’s holiday shopping season will look like.
Rather than hosting a single day of sales, Home Depot plans to provide consumers with ongoing sales and deals for two months, from early November through December. The deals will be available both in-store and online, but a representative for Home Depot said that customers who download and use their mobile app will likely get early access to some of the sales and discounts in November.
This change was made in response to the coronavirus pandemic and all of the current guidelines and precautions put in place. The Home Depot is putting customers’ safety and health concerns first and allowing everyone to shop their Black Friday sales and deals regardless of whether they can make it to a store or not. We have no idea what fall and winter will bring and in order to decrease the amount of stress and uncertainty around a single shopping day, the decision to extend their deals for two months is something we predicted to see from most retailers this year.
What other changes can we expect for Black Friday 2020?
We expect to see many other retailers follow in Home Depot’s footsteps. Rather than a big shopping event the day after Thanksgiving, we think stores will start their deals in late October and early November and extend them through Christmas.
Most stores will likely have deals focused around family rather than parties and entertaining. As many families are avoiding travel and planning to stay in for the holidays this year, you can expect to see deals for things like cozy pajamas, board games, home decor, and indoor activities.
Watch for sales to start very early on holiday home decor this year. Fall decor came out with a bang on September first and you’ll likely see Christmas decor start to pop up in stores like Target and Kohl’s as early as mid-October. We suggest that you jump on these sales early if you’re hoping to snag some new holiday decor this year. With everyone staying home for the holidays, people are going to be decking the halls earlier and bigger than ever before.
What does this mean for Black Friday 2021?
We, unfortunately, have no idea if the coronavirus will cause additional changes to next year’s Black Friday, but we do think Black Friday shopping will change forever after this year. With the addition of online Black Friday deals, we’ve seen Black Friday sales extend from a single day to closer to two weeks for many online retailers. People are welcoming the convenience of staying home with family and shopping from their couch and we think this year may start a trend of staying home the day after Thanksgiving even for the most die-hard Black Friday shoppers.
