One year ago, customers were able to shop in stores on Thanksgiving Day for Black Friday sales. Now, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, mostly all stores will be closed on Thanksgiving Day as merchants take the precautions needed to have a safe Black Friday.
So-called essential stores in Tallahassee such as Best Buy, Target and Walmart are creating an outlet for customers to shop online for electronics and appliances to keep shoppers from hovering over each other in stores.
Walmart’s electronics manager, Cedric Reed, said Black Friday will be different this year compared to past years. He is telling customers to take the safe route that Walmart will be promoting for this upcoming event.
“It’s different. Black Friday normally starts on Thursday, and this is the first year that the store will be closed on Thanksgiving. In the past years, employees only got Christmas off. There will be six events instead of one big event. Three of those events are held online, and the other three will be in the store,” he said.
He added that certain items will be available on specific days with limited quantity within the store. Most items that everybody thinks to get will be online, not in the store, according to Reed.
Most stores will be releasing items day by day in the stores during the week of Thanksgiving to give customers what they desire as well as trying to prevent online from crashing the day of the Black Friday event.
Best Buy Geek Squad Manager Daz Sevilla said his company is trying to keep it safe for their employees by implementing procedures.
“We are trying to keep it safe for our employees on top of our customers by releasing Black Friday early so customers can go and get items instead of customers having to be in the same area at once in the store. Also, we are doing a partnership with a company called Shipt, which can get items the same day to give customers the Black Friday 2020 experience,” Sevilla said.
Usually, customers can go to the store during this event, but most stores have been doing curbside since the coronavirus crisis. Black Friday 2020 will be mainly constructed around online services and curbside.
One of Target’s managers, Quintin Ross, believes curbside pick-up is a safe option this year.
“Some of our online Black Friday deals have started. All of our deals will be released slowly inside and outside. Most importantly, we are trying to persuade customers to use the curbside pickup to offset the amount of traffic in the store,” Ross said.