Retailers opening up at midnight (or even earlier) for Black Friday

by Mike Schramm on Nov 23rd 2011 12:00AM

If waking up at 5am in the morning this Friday to grab some of those deals on video games at Gamestop doesn't sound like your idea of a good time, then good news times two: One, you're completely sane. Second, GameStop is actually opening at 12:01am on Thanksgiving night/Friday morning, so if you can wake yourself out of your turkey coma to go and buy some games, you can get all your shopping done before the moon even comes out.

Best Buy is also opening up at 12am on Friday morning for its doorbuster sale, as is Target, despite some protests from employees and their families. Toys R Us is the real kicker, though: Its sales are starting at 9pm on Thursday night, hardly enough time for the football games to even finish before the holiday sales begin.

You can see all of the available deals on video games, online and offline, in our big, bad Black Friday deals post for this year. If you do head out to buy some items right away at midnight, maybe offer to buy the employees you see there some doughnuts or coffee -- if they're out there all night, they'll probably need it.

Source: GameStop

Tags: best-buy, black-friday, black-friday-211, gamestop, holiday, retailers, sales, target, thanksgiving, toys-r-us

Reader Comments (37)

Oh man, if you guys bring me doughnuts or something to me at Best Buy, I will be forever grateful. I'm pulling an 11pm to 11am shift on Black Friday, and that barely gives me enough time to sleep /and/ eat.

@Nintendo Tim dude i remember having to do a toys r us bf last year it was hell they broke our damn electronic doors. Question dunno if you would know this but are yall going to have all your deals online too?

@GTThaAceman - Not sure. I know a lot of stuff is in-store only, but there's got to be a lot of stuff online that's similar, if not the same, in store.

Page 18 on the Black Friday ad preview on bestbuy.com (http://bestbuy.shoplocal.com/bestbuy/default.aspx?action=entryflash&promotioncode=112411MWSNKPK&sneakpeek=y) says that there are a lot of gaming deals on bestbuy.com/bfgamesale (which is basically an extended version of that page; that URL isn't live yet, so just bookmark it for now), so I can believe that BF deals will extend beyond in-store and go online as well. $8 XBL Gold 3-month cards? Guess who's stocking up...

Will it be stuff asides from gaming? I'm not sure, but one can only assume so.

@Nintendo Tim I'm not big on government interfereing with the private sector, but you can't trust companies to "do the right thing". I'd love to see it be made illegal for retail stores to be open on certain days, Christmas, Thanksgiving at least. They should have to be closed, and should have to pay their employees. I don't want to hear crap about them losing sales. If people aren't able to shop anywhere, those sales will just be bigger the next day for the most part, and if you have a year to plan around it, then do what you have to, have Wednesday sales or something. It's not fair to the employees and their families.

@Nintendo Tim
I feel your pain man working 5 -midnight tonight, followed by 10pm - 8am Thursday/Friday then coming back to close from 5pm to 10:30pm.

I think as a store we have bought 10 cases of monster/redbull to keep us moving

@TexRob - That's what I miss about my government job. I had holidays off, and paid. But, the hours sucked, and I was going into school, so I couldn't swing their hours.

It's slightly discriminatory, especially those religious holidays that span more than just one day. It'd be nice, but it's a capitalist country. If someone wants to make money, they'll be damned if someone tells them otherwise.

I work from 9:30 -7:30am at walmart pls pray that no1 kills me

@Wizardsofwaverly

*hands Wizardsofwaverly a phoenix down*

Take this my friend, may I hope you don't need to use it

@diyjerseys

http://i573.photobucket.com/albums/ss179/HenryPierre/funny/I-see-what-you-did-there-Fry.jpg

@Stevetrop Man of Mystery
I think a WEAPON would be more practical.
*Hands Wizardsofwaverly a sword*
Take this, it's dangerous to go alone.

Hey is that the Latham, NY store?

Ahhh, I remember the joys of working retail (at Target through latter part of HS and on breaks from college) and making DAMN SURE to take off Black Friday after working it the first two years on the job. At least back then, no one opened before 6am.

My sympathies to all of you that work retail during BF now. Though, I am totally calling that BF will fully become Black Thursday into Friday. Where you can shop midnight on Thursday, take a long nap, and get up to cook and finish Thanksgiving dinner in the same day.

man might go to BB for that 42in tv for $200 if its not online or wait til cyber monday but i dunno.

@GTThaAceman
I work at Best Buy answering phones.

I personally have recieved more calls about that TV, from people saying they're coming in for it, than we are going to get in stock of them.

Again, I ALONE have had more people say they're gonna get in line at like, 3, to get that TV, than the stock will have in store. This is completely ignoring the other calls, or the other people coming in, or even the people who didn't communicate about it.

Don't expect to get the TV unless you get in line for it RIGHT NOW.

The funny thing is that all the popular items are sold in minutes, leaving most of the store nearly empty for the rest of the day.
Push it back to 6 AM.

SOME Gamestops.
Half of them, since people likely won't follow through the link.

@(Unverified)

yeah, i checked that out too and thought it was a pretty big detail to omit. even still, i'm so glad i don't have to work at GS anymore for a multitude of reasons, black friday being one of them...

Meaning people will be camping out even earlier. In a few more years, Black Friday will be on a Wednesday night.

I hate my life. I work at Target, and I hate how we have to open at midnight... I have to sleep through dinner to get enough rest, lol.

Then I have go home at 5 AM then come back to work later that day. PAIN.

Oh well, I will still black friday shop on my phone.

@ZexionArmando - Dude, I'm running 11pm-11am Black Friday at Best Buy. I get to go home, sleep for god only knows how long, eat, go back to bed and be back in Saturday 3-close.

Oh, and 4 finals to work on for school. Guess whats taking priority, and I'll give you a hint: it doesn't rhyme with "vinyl".

@Nintendo Tim Yeah, I have a paper to do sometime this weekend, but I might as well just go into a coma lol.

I remember working retail going through high school and college, the worst years had to be when the 360 and PS3/Wii released. I can't complain much though, considering the town I lived in (paramus, nj) was in one of the few counties in the country that upholds the blue laws so our stores were never allowed to open at midnight or on sundays. Even so, that didn't stop it from being any less hellish during the holidays lol.

To all my retail brother and sisters out there, God speed! To all the people who don't work retail, be nice to the ones that do. The customer may always be right (even though they never are) but that doesn't mean you have to be a douche towards them.

@xHotPotatox

I was at Target yesterday and was listening to an employee trying to tell a customer that they do not know exactly what comes on the trucks until they go and get the stuff off of it. I should know, I've done it too. But the ignorant customer on the phone was just being unbearable to the employee demanding that they find out where and when something is coming into the store.

The employee just said "I'll go try to find out" and put the phone down so another experienced employee could get on the phone to get rid of the unbearable customer. I would have hung it up a long time ago.

It's ridiculous that consumerism has gotten so bad that people can't even spend thanksgiving evening at home with their families. My sympathies to anyone who has to work that night.

@343 Guilty Fart
Before you know it there will be turkey picnics in the parking lots, skipping Thanksgiving dinner altogether.

@343 Guilty Fart

This just might be the best post ever.

@343 Guilty Fart

Thank you sir, us in retail appreciate it.

I personally don't despise working BF since it's so busy that the shifts usually fly by, but I can't stand driving by wal-mart or best buy and seeing people camped out on Monday/Tuesday. It's as though Black Friday is becoming more important to people than Thanksgiving itself and that is truly regrettable.

Wow these new hours are getting rediculous. I was gonna wake up early and go to Best Buy but I might as well just stay up. I'm sure everything good is gonna be gone by morning.

This is so unfair to the employees. I'd be pissed if I had to work the graveyard shift on thanksgiving night. It's completely unfair. The worst part is that people can't exactly take a stand and not show up/quit, because it's not like finding a new job in this economy is easy.

@CaramelZappa
Also: Joystiq, why are peoples profile pages completely blank now? And recently, I haven't been able to comment through the mobile site. I tells me I need to be logged in, even though I am. Works fine on the app, but since I use google reader for my reading it's a minor inconvenience to open the joystiq app and then find the article again, rather than just use the link from the RSS feed.

i work at kmart, and i can tell you we would probably refuse to come in, they are already making us try to cover huge stores with not even a skeleton screw. usualy at evening we have 1 manager 1 elec, 1 clothing, 1 cachier and 1 service desk person.
i can tell you right now pretty much everyone would refuse to show up if they tried making us stay up all night for black friday deals to begin at 9-midnight.
and theres no way we could handle the rush with 5 people.

Man, this day keeps reminding me why I 'm glad I haven't worked retail for years. And since I work an evening shift, I can just go to Best Buy after work to get that Zelda 3DS (because I am a sucker for limited editions), huzzah!

But seriously this crap is getting out of control... Why do they want to keep pushing it earlier and earlier?

@BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam
same reason they think they can run a large department store on 5 people.
greed.

Wal-mart doesn't even close on Thanksgiving. While you are eating dinner with your family, please remember those who don't get that opportunity just because their employer decided to squeeze a little more profit out of one day. Their greed means that many people don't get to spend a very special time with their families. Please, don't support the companies doing this.

If you have to go out to buy something, please give every employee you talk to the best "Thank you," you can muster. If you don't *have* to go out, please boycott any retailer that's open on Thanksgiving and wait until another day to shop.

Anybody shopping on thanksgiving or before 10am on friday should be ashamed of themselves.

Just 2 more years of this retail bullshit...ugh....why midnight.....

It's worth the extra 25-30 dollars, not to stand out side all night, like a fool.

Retailers opening up at midnight (or even earlier) for Black Friday

Reader Comments (37)

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 12:09AM Nintendo Tim said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 12:19AM GTThaAceman said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 12:51AM Nintendo Tim said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 8:46AM TexRob said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 4:12PM Dreku said

Posted: Nov 24th 2011 3:40PM Nintendo Tim said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 12:10AM Wizardsofwaverly said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 2:22AM Stevetrop Man of Mystery said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 4:16AM Stevetrop Man of Mystery said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 6:21AM Andrew12h said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 12:15AM artreas said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 12:17AM SpishackCola said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 12:18AM GTThaAceman said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 4:37AM HydrophobicFish PSN ID Hydrophob said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 12:18AM Tegolin said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 12:29AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 9:36AM LENSconcept said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 12:29AM RickGhastly said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 12:37AM ZexionArmando said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 12:55AM Nintendo Tim said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 1:15AM ZexionArmando said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 1:19AM xHotPotatox said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 2:31PM BlazeKing said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 1:22AM 343 Guilty Fart said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 8:58AM Ebok007 said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 9:44AM refinedsugar said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 10:53AM JGGiant915 said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 1:59AM VileDivinity said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 2:11AM CaramelZappa said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 2:13AM CaramelZappa said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 2:21AM dargondarkfire said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 5:00AM BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 7:22AM dargondarkfire said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 10:15AM TheOtherJames said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 11:48AM eat it said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 12:10PM Chichok said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2011 2:00PM drunkingamebar said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

WB conjures up Harry Potter for Kinect this fall

Featured Stories

Weekly Webcomic Wrapup is a stranger in a strange land

Silver Lining: I Am Alive's unfeeling world

Game Of Thrones and the paradoxes of adaptation

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW