Where do you plan to shop on Black Friday?

With Black Friday sales starting earlier this year and most consumers planning to shop online rather than in-store, the personal-finance website WalletHub today has its report on 2020’s Best Places to Shop on Black Friday.

WalletHub surveyed nearly 7,000 deals from 26 of the biggest U.S. retailers’ 2020 Black Friday ad scans to identify the stores offering the biggest discounts in various product categories such as “Appliances,” “Jewelry” and “Toys.”

Best Black Friday Retailers (Avg. % Discount)

  1.  JCPenney (56.71%)
  2.  Nordstrom (39.05%)
  3. Macy’s (55.97%)
  4. GameStop (38.81%)
  5. Kohl’s (51.87%)
  6. Office Depot and OfficeMax (33.29%)
  7. Belk (50.01%)
  8. The Home Depot (32.07%)
  9. Lenovo (44.06%)
  10. Meijer (32.02%)

Black Friday shopping is one of America’s most treasured holiday traditions, but there’s always a bit of hassle involved, Adam McCann of. WalletHub writes, Traditionally, shoppers have to get up early, stand in endless lines at stores and try to find deals through hordes of other shoppers — all in the name of savings. The day will look a lot different this year, though, as the COVID-19 pandemic will limit both stores’ abilities to let crowds in and consumers’ enthusiasm to leave the house. In fact, 70% of consumers are “not likely at all” or “somewhat unlikely” to shop in stores on Black Friday, and merchants expect online sales to make up a much larger portion of their total sales compared to last year.

Sales on this traditional shopping holiday have also been changing during the past few years. They are starting earlier, weeks ahead of the actual shopping holiday at some stores. That’s good news for consumers who want to stretch out their purchases over a longer period of time rather than buying everything in one day. So which stores offer the best discounts and for which items?

Key Stats

  • JCPenney has the highest overall discount rate at 56.71 percent, whereas Ace Hardware has the lowest at 8.63 percent.
  • The overall average discount for Black Friday is 32 percent. Consumers should aim for this discount amount or higher to avoid Black-Friday traps.
  • The “Computer & Phones” category has one of the biggest shares of discounted items, 15.85 percent of all offers, whereas the “Books, Movies & Music” category has the smallest at 2.74 percent.

To view the full report and each retailer’s rank in all product categories, click here. 

Image Sources

  • Black Friday: Image by Miroslava Chrienova from Pixabay