Daily Debrief: Devising your Black Friday strategy Video

Daily Debrief: Devising your Black Friday strategy Video Transcript

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>> It's exactly one week until Thanksgiving, which means, it's exactly one week and one day until Black Friday. So if you're out there shopping for tech toys, what should you expect this year? Welcome to the CNET News Daily Debrief, I'm Charles Copper here with my colleague Erica Ogg. And I guess the question this year is all of the bad news that we've seen regarding consumer electronics stores, computer and software manufactures might that translate into good news if you're out looking to buy a new bubble.

>> I would say definitely. With the economy the way it is, with retailers like Circuit City, you know declaring bankruptcy, a lot of the deals that people expect to see on Black Friday would, you know the day after Thanksgiving, people are already seeing really good deals you know a month ago and now.

>> Even in advanced of the "official" start of the holiday selling season?

>> Yeah. And even apart from the economy, a lot of retailers are starting to do more of like a Black Friday month. I think like Kmart and Walmart, you know start doing Black Friday deals on November 2, so.

>> Would you find that online before they hit the stores?

>> Worked. There are lot of sites that specialize in trying to get the ads for Black Friday ahead of time.

>> Right.

>> But I think a lot of retailers like Walmart, like Kmart are trying to just kind of doing it round around that and just get the deals out there ahead of time. And they're still are saving the really good ones for the day after Thanksgiving, which they -- you could find out on Thanksgiving usually.

>> Are there any particular areas, televisions, GPSs, etcetera, which may be more, let's say more price cuts than others?

>> TVs definitely. And we're already...

>> Big screen TVs.

>> Yeah. Flat Screen TVs and we're already seeing, you know 42-inch LCDs for $500, 50-inch Plasmas were like 800.

>> Where severe, whether they're going for at least twice as much.

>> Exactly. So this is, I mean people who are in the market for a TV this is a really, really good time to be shopping for one.

>> For in the point of view of the company's themselves, how much of a hit to margins does this mean. We're talking about substantial discounts versus what they otherwise might have offer during a normal holiday season.

>> You know -- we don't know quite yet, but I would -- I think it's very safe to assume that because they're offering such good deals so early on that yeah, they're gonna take a hit on the margins and I think they do have so much excess and inventory that they just need to move it and so, and that means, you know offering really good prices. That's good for shoppers. Not so good for them.

>> I should note that the day after Thanksgiving, CNET will have a CNET Live special edition as it does every from 8 AM Pacific time until 6 PM where we will have an assortment of folks talking to you about what's happening out there on the shopping scenes, so definitely tune in. Thanks Erica. On behalf of CNET News, I'm Charles Cooper. ^M00:03:06 [ Music ]