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The following is a guest post by fellow investor (mobile guru) whose interest lie within the mobile space.
Every year there is innovation in how stores are going to get shoppers to spend their holiday money. This year I thought it was only going to be the fact that some stores are allowing some of the same in store Black Friday deals to be purchased online. Companies like Best Buy and Macy’s will offer some of the same deals online that will be in store. Others are offering online discounts that are close to the actual store discounts but just not as good. This may be because of the “free” online shipping that is offered on just about everything. But this is not the only innovation being offered this year. Stores are opening up at all types of odd hours.
Toys R Us or Toys for Us as my kids called it will actually open on Thanksgiving day at 10 pm. Walmartwill open at midnight, Kohls around 3 a.m. and Target at 4 a.m. Seriously I am not sure I can stand much more thoughts of shopping. In fact the commercials are almost as bad as the political ads we all had to live through at the beginning of the month.
No the real changes in Black Friday is going to be with Mobile Advertising and the impact it has on your shopping. Anyone can get out of bed or not go to bed at all and shop. That really has not changed much over the years, but this year the change is going to be in what happens once you get there. Advances in location-based technology, bar-code scanning, price-comparison apps and social-networking tools have turned the mobile device into another tool that allows consumers a completely new way to shop.
