Amazon

Amazon has started its Black Friday deals. Customers can save up to 30% on select games and puzzles, Lark & Ro winter essentials and Callista cotton sheet sets. The company offers 20% off its exclusive home essentials. Amazon is selling the HP ENVY printer for $89.99, Ultimate Ears BOOM 3 Portable Bluetooth Wireless Speakers for $129.99 and Aimores Professional Blenders for $74.99. Amazon had 25 pages including 798 items of women’s fashion early Black Friday deals on Wednesday November 14, 14 pages of men’s fashion, nine pages of beauty, four pages including 127 items of girls’ fashion and three pages including 80 items of boys’ fashion.

Best Buy

Best Buy will open at 5 pm on Thanksgiving Day. Doorbuster deals include an in-store only 43-inch 4K TV for $129.99. Best Buy will offer the Amazon 2nd generation Echo Dot for $19.99, 128G Wi-Fi iPad Mini 4s for $249.99 and Google Home Hubs for $99.99. A selection of premium electronics at discounted price for Black Friday are available online for purchase now. Customers can get Jaybird X3 Sport Wireless in-ear headphones for $59.99 online.

Best Buy Black Friday Advertisement
Source: Best Buy

Costco

Costco will close on November 22, but the company has special online one-day offers for November 22. Deals include $1,300 off an LG22 cubic foot refrigerator and $70 off a 32GB 9.7-inch iPad.

Costco stores will open at 9 am on November 23 and offer different promotions through November 26. The company will take $8 off whole boneless pork loin, $4 off Fresh Fryer boneless & skinless chicken breasts and $25 off USDA Prime Beef Loin. Costco will offer a bundle of 3 Google Home Minis for $69.99 and take $100 off the Dyson V8 vacuum.

CVS

CVS will remain open for regular hours on Thanksgiving Day. The company offers buy one get one free on select toys and M&M’s. Several Colgate products will be free with a CVS card and coupons. The 23andMe Genetic DNA Starter Kit is free after ExtraBucks Rewards. A selection of plush will be on promotion for 25% off. CVS.com will offer free shipping on every order all season long and 30% off regular prices.

Five Below

Five Below will open from 6 pm on Thanksgiving Day till 1:00 am Friday and open again 7 am to 9 pm on Friday. Products such as Micro Remote Control Quadcopter, Infinite Wrap Pro Headset and Guitar Hero Live Game will be available at $5 as a part of special promotions only on Thursday and Friday. In addition, customers will find 7 oz giant Hershey’s kisses, buy one get one 50% off. The company also has a selection of goods on sale for the following weekend.

JCPenney

JCPenney will open at 2 pm on Thanksgiving Day and early shoppers can win coupons such as $500 off $500 or $100 off $100 or $10 off $10 at each location.

A selection of toys will be on sale for 50% off. Holiday décor including ornaments and trees will be available for 60% off. Customers will get a $25 off $25 coupon if they spend $100 on gift cards, in store only through November 24. JCPenney will sell a selection of Red Box women’s boots for $19.99 and sweaters from different brands for $9.99. In addition, the company will offer up to 80% off on fine jewelry.

JCPenny.com
Source: JCPenny

Kohl’s

Kohl’s will open at 5 pm on Thanksgiving Day. November 19-23, for every $50 spent, the company will offer $15 Kohl’s Cash. Consumers can start shopping the sale at 12:01 am CT at Kohls.com and in store at 5 pm.

Doorbusters include a Samsung 58-inch 4k smart TV for $549.99, just $24 for an Amazon Echo Dot 3rd Generation and $399.99 for a Canon EOS Rebel T6 DSLR camera with $120 Kohl’s Cash. In apparel, Kohl’s will offer $14.99 tops from Simply Vera Vera Wang, $7.99 for licensed character shirts and $8.99 for Tek Gear Fleece.

In addition, the company will offer 60% off on a selection of baby clothing, 30% on several Lego products and a selection of toys for $17.99.

Macy’s

Macy’s will open from 5 pm on Thanksgiving Day to 2 am on Friday this year. Stores will re-open at 6 am and run doorbusters until 1 pm on Friday.

The company will offer in-store only doorbusters that are free after rebate including a Bella Slowcooker, a Martha Stewart 4-pack Glassware Set, select tote bags and fashion watches. Macy’s has several in-store only deals for the Bella Electric Skillet, Tools of the Trade soup pot etc. Levi’s, DKNY and Calvin Klein will be offered at 30-50% off on select styles.

Macy’s attached $10 and $20 off coupon on select in store items on the Black Friday Advertisement. In apparel, customers can purchase $199.99 designer suits from Michael Kors, Tommy Hilfiger etc. Juniors’ dresses and fine gauge sweaters will be available in store for only $9.99. With select mattress purchases, customers will get a free box spring. The company will also offer 65% off holiday ornaments and dinnerware. Free shipping is included for online purchase of $49 or more.

Old Navy

Old Navy will open at 3 pm on Thanksgiving Day.

From November 15 to 20, the company will offer 40% off and card-member-only discounts of 50% off entire purchase. November 16-20, customers will get jeans, sleep, outwear, tees and sweaters for 50% off. November 21-23, Old Navy will offer 50% off customers’ entire purchase and over 1,000 styles for $5 for all customers, both in-store and online. On Black Friday, the company will sell $1 socks in store only.

Oldnavy.com
Source: Old Navy

Target

Target will open at 5 pm on Thanksgiving Day and close at 1 am Friday. Stores will re-open at 7 am on Friday.

All TVs will be on sale and Target will sell Element 55-inch 4K Smart TVs for $199.99 in store on Thanksgiving Day. Other doorbusters include a Google Home Mini for $25, Amazon Echo Dot 3rd Generation for $24, Nintendo Switch Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for $299.99 and Powerbeats Wireless Neighborhood Collection for $89.99.

Various products come with gift card promotions. Customers will get a free $250 Target Gift Card towards the purchase of an iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max and a $300 Target Gift Card for a Samsung Galaxy Note 9. Both require qualified activation on selected carriers and deals are valid from 7 am Friday to Sunday. In addition, a selection of games and puzzles will be 50% off.

Walmart

Walmart stores will open at 6 pm local time on Thanksgiving night. Online sales will start on Wednesday, November 21 at 10 pm EST.

The company will sell products such as the iPhone 6 for $99 on selected service providers and the new Sony PS4 1TB Slim Spider-Man bundle for $199. In addition, customers can purchase a 40-inch 1080p TV for $99 and a 65-inch 4K Smart TV for $398. Walmart also offers a selection of toys for a fixed price of $5, $10, $15 etc.

Walmart Black Friday Advertisement
Source: Walmart

Key Takeaways

Early Black Friday deals are available on Amazon now with more scheduled to arrive November 16-23 and Old Navy has Black Friday creep as well. New tech and electronics will be traffic drivers for e-commerce and brick-and-mortar companies, with big screen smart TVs, iPhones, Amazon and Google smart products available at multiple retailers. Many retailers will open their doors Thanksgiving evening, and open early Friday with doorbusters for early risers.

Sustainability Matters

ReMode’s Founder, Pierre-Nicolas Hurstel, opened the conference with a commentary on the state of the fashion industry, new consumer attitudes and changing consumer expectations. According to Hurstel, 66% of millennials are willing to spend more for sustainable products and 90% would switch brands for a strong cause.

We are at a critical moment with the opportunity to create sustainable purposeful brands, to scale innovation and transform the fashion industry with open collaboration. Real change necessitates collaboration across the industry from sourcing to retail shelf. The fashion industry will be 25% of the world’s carbon footprint by 2050 if we continue as is.

Focused Iterative Improvement Leading to Scale Benefits

Joey Zwillinger, Cofounder and co-CEO of Allbirds, talked about Allbirds’ mission: to make shoes in a better way, offering comfortable and durable products with great customer service while using sustainable sources. Zwillinger claims Allbirds has the lowest carbon footprint in the footwear industry and that footwear is ready for disruption with approximately 20 billion pairs of shoes manufactured annually that ultimately end up in a landfill.

Pierre-Nicolas Hurstel, ReMode, Joey Zwillinger, Allbirds
Source: Coresight

Zwillinger’s advice to brands, “We tried to be absolutely 100% sustainable and it led to ugly products that didn’t last and were more expensive. Perfection is the enemy of good. Every day we try to get better.”

In terms of product development, Allbirds started with wool, moved to eucalyptus fiber, and then collaborated with a Brazilian company and created a foam shoe sole, removing petroleum from the process and replacing it with sugars – resulting a carbon negative foam sole.

Zwillinger touched on a repeated theme of Remode: industrywide collaboration to drive change, uniting commerce and sustainability. Allbirds opened its foam to the footwear industry and others, claiming altruism as well as the opportunity for improved financials as more users lowers costs. Big companies are calling. Scaled sustainability should ensue over time.

Allbirds focuses less on product development and more on fewer products with greater impact. With its direct-to-consumer vertical model, Allbirds is taking profits typically reserved for retailers and investing it back in product quality at a lower price.

Transparency and Sustainability

We attended numerous sessions on sustainability. Michael Preysman, Founder and CEO of Everlane, built his business on garments designed to last, partnering with ethical factories and providing pricing transparency to consumers.  The genesis of Everlane was anti-fast fashion and a revelation of how the fashion industry really worked seven years ago. “A t-shirt that cost $7 to make was priced at $50 at retail, it felt wrong” Preysman said during his fireside chat with Hurstel. Online, direct to consumer, Everlane could offer the garment for $15. A brand was born.

But a sustainable supply chain isn’t as easy as pricing transparency. Picking the right factories and finding the right audit partners takes time. Preysman focuses on finding the right partners who are doing the right thing and pushing them forward. There are many incremental tasks that can change the sustainability of fashion, for instance, not using the plastic wrap that individually surrounds each article of clothing en route to the customers. At Everlane, taking control of the supply chain is a layer of incremental cost that they absorb, approximately 10%-15%. Materials haven’t been available in sustainable ways, but brands and retailers can push suppliers to offer sustainable options.

When asked where will Everlane be in ten years, Preysman said “to be sustainable and purchase is cognitive dissonance. To buy nothing is the most sustainable thing you can do. Our future involves impacting design and the supply chain, educating consumers and driving change and awareness.”

Building a Sustainable World begins with Academia

Barak Cakmak, Dean of Fashion at the Parsons School of Design, addressed the role of academia in fashion’s evolving role in society. Parsons encourages students to acknowledge the importance of transparency and ethical, environmentally-friendly supply chains in fashion and understand key societal challenges. As a first step, all required courses incorporate relevant knowledge on sustainability and ethics as a new baseline for fashion design education. Sustainability has become a focus of Parsons’ projects in fashion and other institutions.

In addition, Parsons now engages with all the players across the value chain, not just major fashion brands, and is building deep relationships with material suppliers, manufacturers, and other industry participants that align with Parsons core values. By bringing knowledge from local and global, small and large, traditional and technologically advanced partners, the college hopes to ensure a clear understanding of the diverse ecosystem in fashion and beyond. Today, Parsons has innovative partnerships with organizations such as AARP, United Nations, NGOs and even governments to explore the role of design for sustainable and ethical approaches to cultural and societal questions.

US retailers are preparing for the biggest shopping weekend of the year, with an estimated 164 million people plan to shop Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, according to the NRF/Prosper Insights & Analytics annual survey released November 16. Coresight Research is forecasting at least a 4% gain in 2018 holiday sales, with online sales growth expected to be in low to mid-double digits.

Thanksgiving marks the official beginning of holiday shopping, though many shoppers began as early as last January to take advantage of 60%-80% off sales for holiday decorations. While January is too early for most, retailers acknowledge that the traditional calendar markers have blurred, and Christmas in July is a familiar promotion for many early shoppers.

Base: US Internet users ages 18+ who plan to shop Thanksgiving weekend
Source: Prosper Insight & Analytics/Coresight Research

According to the NRF/Prosper Insights & Analytics survey of 7,516 consumers conducted October 29–November 7, 45.1% of consumers haven’t begun shopping for the holidays yet, and 2.7% are finished shopping. The gift that most (58.9% of those planning to shop) plan to give this year is clothing, followed by gift cards (56.4%), toys (40.8%) and media (40.1%).

Black Friday will be the busiest day: 70.7% of those who said they plan to shop Thanksgiving weekend will shop on Black Friday, equating to an estimated 116 million people. This is followed by Small Business Saturday (41.3% of those planning to shop, or an estimated 67 million people), with Cyber Monday wrapping up the shopping weekend (46.1% of those planning to shop, an estimated 75 million people). Shops open Thanksgiving day will see shoppers, as 21.1% of those planning to shop will do so Thanksgiving Day.

Shopping or Not?

When asked if they are likely to go shopping this Thanksgiving weekend, either online or in stores, there was a 160-basis point (bps) jump in survey respondents who said yes, a 10 bps increase in those saying they will not shop during Thanksgiving weekend and a 170 bps drop in consumers who said they may shop.

Source: Prosper Insight & Analytics/Coresight Research

In terms of where consumers find inspiration, 47.3% of those surveyed said they will go online – the same as 2012. Some 40.7% of those surveyed will rely on friends and family, up slightly from 2012’s 40.4%. TV advertisements remain an important source of gifting inspiration for 27.7% of adults, down significantly from 2012’s 35.4%. Shoppers continue to find in-store inspiration as well, with 37.8% citing instore as a source of inspiration, down from 45.2% in 2012.

Traditional Media Remains a Significant Source of Inspiration

While social media has risen in terms of being a source of inspiration in the aggregate for adults, from 22.9% in 2012 to 37.5% in 2018. Facebook is down 320 bps year over year to 13.2% and virtually flat to 2012’s 13.3%. Instead, shoppers are looking more to Pinterest and Instagram: 10.3% of respondents say they will look to Pinterest, while 8.8% will look to Instagram.

Source: Prosper Insight & Analytics/Coresight Research

Surprisingly, a greater percentage of millennials, 29.6% of younger millennials aged 18–24 and 31.7% of older millennials, aged 25–34, find inspiration on TV. Some 41.8% of older millennials will use in-store experiences for inspiration, versus 39.5% of younger millennials and 37.8% of adults.

Traditional media and advertising, such as store circulars, catalogs, direct mail and magazines, remain significant sources of gift giving inspiration. While 28.1% of the overall adult population will rely on advertising circulars, just 15.2% of older millennials (the 25–34 age group) will. In our Consumer Shopping Insights for Holiday 2018 report we note the older millennial plans to spend an average of $947 this holiday, versus $573 for younger millennials, and $1,007 for all adults. See Figure 3 for traditional media and intended use by adults generally, and younger and older millennials.

Source: Prosper Insight & Analytics/Coresight Research

 New Media Outlets Will be Heavily Used by Older Millennials

Older millennials plan to use social media as a source of inspiration, more than any other demographic. Instagram will be the greatest social media source of inspiration, with 25.1% of 25–34-year-old consumers expected to use Instagram. Facebook came in second place, with 22.9% of the 25–34 age group planning to use the platform to find inspiration for gifts. Figure 4 displays new media and its intended use by adults generally, and younger and older millennials.

Source: Prosper Insight & Analytics/Coresight Research