Pre-Black Friday Deals Heat Up at Big Retailers

BENTONVILLE, Ark. (TheStreet) -- Amid old stories of illuminated flying reindeer, Frankenstenish snowmen and 300-pound home invaders who squeeze through chimneys, the one about the holiday shopping season once beginning on "Black Friday" after Thanksgiving may be the least believable.

As parents tell children about a simpler time when drunken angels saved Jimmy Stewart from suicide and stores didn't stock candy canes until November, the reality is that retailers will need a bag of tricks bigger than Santa's to keep consumers occupied this year. Wal-Mart Stores(WMT Quote) says 55% of shoppers surveyed start budgeting for holidays in August, and the National Retail Federation says 40% of Americans had planned to start their holiday shopping before Halloween.

Black Friday-style sales began for retailers like Amazon(AMZN Quote), Sears Holdings(SHLD Quote) and Target(TGT Quote) weeks ago. With 30% of shoppers surveyed by NPD Group saying they planned to spend less this year than last year, some retailers' seasons and discounts began as early as July. The NRF predicts holiday spending to drop 1% this year, after increasing 4.4% last year.

"The retail marketers say, they're getting away from the word 'sale,'" says NRF spokesman Mark Gatti. "It's a hole everyone jumped into."

That hole opened in October, when Wal-Mart announced it would sell 100 of its toys for $10 a pop and flatten prices on some electronics. Sears deepened the crevasse when it decided to host Black Friday sales every Friday from Oct. 30 onward, which led Wal-Mart to kick off weekly cuts last weekend by inviting shoppers to gorge themselves on cheap Thanksgiving foodstuffs and TVs, and help themselves to $10 pre-orders of top DVDs on its Web site. Amazon and Target jumped in by waging a three-way book battle with Wal-Mart that dropped many popular titles to $10 or less. While Barnes & Noble(BKS Quote) and Borders(BGP Quote) resisted the urge to make similar cuts, Borders' plan to eliminate 200 smaller outlets and 1,500 jobs in January is an ominous coincidence.