The holiday season has finally arrived with Thanksgiving tomorrow and shoppers preparing for their early rise on Black Friday to get the best deals.
Black Friday is typically the start of the holiday shopping season; however, lately more stores are opening on Thanksgiving Day. Among the national stores that are jumping ahead on the holiday shopping season are Walmart, Kmart, Sears and Macy’s.
Locally, the majority of Fallon stores have decided to take Thanksgiving off so employees can spend it with their family such as Big 5, Big R and GameStop.
“We strongly encourage residents to shop locally in Fallon before they move onto Reno or Carson City,” said Natalie Parrish, executive director of the Fallon Chamber of Commerce. “We have incentives for shoppers who participate in the Live Local Fallon and shop here, so we hope that brings shoppers into our local stores first.”
GameStop Assistant Store Manager Dylan Brooks said the store will be closed on Thanksgiving so the holiday can be celebrated properly. The store will open its doors for the restless shoppers from midnight-9 p.m. on Black Friday.
“Last year we had a line out the door from midnight to 2 a.m. with customers waiting to purchase the latest games,” Brooks said. “We’re expecting the same amount of people if not more with all of the good offers on products.”
Shoppers can expect to find 20 percent off of clothing, jewelry and toys at Big R, a ranch, farm and home supply store, and 10 percent off everything else. The store will be open from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. on Black Friday.
One of the newest stores in Fallon, Big 5, will be open from 5 a.m.-9 p.m. on Friday with deals going on throughout the store. Store Manager Ryan Pedroza said a list of the deals is on their website.
Another new store, Bealls, will be open Thanksgiving Day from 4 p.m.-1 a.m. and Black Friday from 6 a.m.-10 p.m. On both days the store will be having door busters, first come first serve though. On Friday the door busters will be from 6 a.m.-3 p.m. and from 6-7 a.m. shoppers can enter a drawing to win an associate discount for 20 percent off items for an entire year.
“On Thanksgiving Day, our women’s boots will be on sale from $19.99 to $29.99 and designer clothing will be 50 percent off,” manager Linda Barnes said. “I’m hoping between Thursday and Friday we’ll be able to make over $100,000 in sales. We participate in Live Local Fallon so shoppers will be able to get their stamps for the passports here. We have deals going on throughout the shop and we offer wonderful customer service.”
The Fallon Sears store will be having its deals Thursday and Friday. The store will be open Thanksgiving evening from 6 p.m.–11 p.m. and Black Friday 7 a.m.-7 p.m. All appliances will be discounted up to 40 percent off and if shoppers use their Sears credit card an additional discount will be added on top of the 40 percent. The store will also be offering a 24-month interest free if the Sears credit card is used.
According to Walmart’s website, their Black Friday specials start Thanksgiving Day at 6 p.m. and will have a second wave of specials at 8 p.m. Walmart will be having a one-hour “in-stock guarantee” on selected items. If any of the items sell out in the first hour, shoppers will be able to purchase a guarantee card to ensure the item will ship to the store before Christmas.
All guarantee cards are limited to one per customer and per item; specials start at 6 a.m. on Black Friday. Shoppers can also check out Walmart’s website for their Black Friday week specials that are happening now.