Find Black Friday Deals Online

Staff and Wire Reports

OKLAHOMA CITY -- After pushing steep discounts throughout November that are usually reserved for the day after Thanksgiving, retailers are offering even bigger cuts and promotions for Black Friday.

The Black Friday deals are normally released in the Thanksgiving Day ads, but some shoppers like Consumer Queen Melissa Garcia are getting a head start by looking online.

"If you don't plan ahead, you're going to miss out," Garcia said. "You really gotta check your ads."

Garcia posts the ads and coupons on her Consumer Queen Web site.

"I'm so excited," she said. "I've been online everyday because everyday I find a new ad I can post."

Local mall managers said they expect a busy Black Friday, but the outlook from national analysts is a little bleaker.

Consumers are already jaded by all those "60 percent off" signs plastered on storefronts. Analysts say shoppers may stick to smaller gifts like cosmetics rather than $1,000 flat-panel TVs in a holiday season expected to be the weakest in decades.

Another concern? There aren't any must-have items so far, even in toys -- though some items have been popular, such as Spin Master Ltd.'s Bakugan.

Kmart, a division of Sears Holdings Corp., started offering products at what it calls "Black Friday prices" earlier in the month -- the first time it had done so. Drugstore chain CVS Caremark Corp. will launch a weeklong "Black Friday" promotion on Sunday, offering early morning deals on items ranging from GPS devices to digital photos frames.

"Black Friday is going to have some very impressive deals, but overall the deals won't be any better than what you saw before," despite all the hype, said Dan de Grandpre, founder and editor-in-chief of dealnews.com. "Retailers have already given their best shots already."