Forget about saving Thanksgiving from the retailers and start worrying about Halloween. According to the Wall Street Journal the biggest price cuts of last year actually came the Sunday before Thanksgiving, not Black Friday.
In fact, just a year after "Showrooming" hit our collective radars the term is all but gone. The practice of customers using their phones to comparison shop while at a different retailer didn't even get a full year before it was completely accepted as simply "shopping."
Related: Why it won't be a happy holiday for retail workers
To that end the Wall Street Journal itself is actually offering a "Christmas Sales Tracker" on which it's updating prices for ten popular items on an hourly basis. The Journal says prices for items like the popular UP24 are being tweaked constantly by merchants. As of this morning the UP24 was being sold at Amazon for 18% lower than the nearest competitor. Of course you showroom. Why wouldn't you?
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Into this fast moving age of price sensitivity in real time we'll hear from Walmart (WMT) this week and Target (TGT) next. Between the two that's about $1.3 billion in revenue every single day just in the U.S. Taken together they will tell you everything you need to know about the current state of the consumer. It's a big week for earnings but don't get caught napping on your shopping; the best sales could be happening right now.
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