Traditionally customers are used to seeing Black Friday deals the day after Thanksgiving, But this year, retailers are offering deals even earlier. They hope people will start their Christmas shopping now.
Walk into most major retail stores these days, and you'll notice a common theme. Christmas decorations are up.....along with sale signs throughout the store.
"It just seems like it's always earlier and earlier, even before Halloween, you know you're seeing Christmas stuff," Sharon Lathan said.
Customers roamed the aisles of Best Buy in River Park Saturday......scouring for deals.This weekend, Best Buy started its "pre Black Friday" sale.
Store manager, Andrew St. John says so far, it's been a success. "I've been in retail for years and I've really seen large volume of traffic coming in this year and we're very excited if this is any indication of what's coming for the holiday season."
Retailers have good reason to be optimistic.
According to the National Retail Federation, retail sales rose by 4.3 percent in October, compared to October of 2009. And holiday sales are expected to increase by 2.3 percent this year.
Still, some marketing experts say retailers remain cautious. Dr. William Rice says, "I'm seeing that nervousness kinda drive this whole process of wanting to get the dollars as soon as they can or getting tied to a certain retailer as soon as they possibly can and I'm seeing both these things driving this earlier process of Black Friday."
And while getting customers into the store seems to be an easy task for some retailers....shoppers say that's only half the battle.
"It could be something they say it's a deal and it's not really, so you have to be careful, but yeah, you know they're trying to get you in the store...and, I'm in it!!" Kathy Dunkle said.
Pre black Friday sales will continue through the weekend and up until the holiday season.
