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Black Friday store deals will start early to compete with giant online retailers

Posted at 10:03 PM, Oct 19, 2017
and last updated 2017-10-20 01:14:51-04

DENVER -- We're only 67 days away from Christmas and more than a month until Black Friday, but people are already speculating about the best deals this holiday season. 

Denver7's Jaclyn Allen found shoppers may need to be ready earlier than ever before to get the doorbuster deals online.

"There's this pressure to have the deals not only in the store, but also online," said Darrin Duber-Smith, a marketing expert with Metropolitan State University.

Duber-Smith said holiday sales this year are expected to increase about 4 percent, but most of that will be in e-commerce, and most of those sales go to Amazon.

"We've seen less and less in-store traffic every year for the last several years, and it truly is the Amazon effect," said Duber-Smith.

For years now, there has been a "Holiday Creep" with Black Friday sales moving into Thanksgiving and now the Wednesday night before with surprise deals earlier in the week. In fact, experts said you should expect to see some of the doorbuster deals going on the weekend before Black Friday, as retailers try to compete with Amazon.

"The retailers are going to really ramp putting exclusives out on their mobile apps," said Brent Shelton, an online shopping expert with BFads.net, who predicts that doorbuster "like cheap television" will be on sale online earlier than ever this year. "Probably the Friday before Black Friday is when things are really going to kick off this year."

Sheltons said the infamous Black Friday ads will start leaking out in about two weeks, but already predictions are rolling in.

Dealnews.com predicts hot deals on TVs, including 4K TV prices almost as cheap as 1080p TV sets.

To see more Black Friday predictions, click here and here.

Instead of fighting crowds in stores, people will have to have fast fingers. Shelton recommends using mobile payments or Paypal to save time and not miss the deal.

"Make your list and be ready to shop when they tell you that things are live," said Shelton.

He said there are more than 50,000 Black Friday ads, but plenty of websites, like BFads.net will help you plan ahead and research the best deals.

And while going to the store isn't as necessary anymore, plenty of people still like the excitement, the doorbusters and the instant gratification of having something in their hands, instead of hoping it will get shipped in time.