Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to use its web site on Thanksgiving to create excitement for shopping in stores the next day. It will unveil eight previously unannounced special deals on its web site on Thanksgiving. The deals will be available in stores between 5 and 11 a.m. on Friday.
"We've held back a few extra special values and are leveraging our online channel to provide a few surprises," says John Fleming, Wal-Mart's chief marketing officer. "On Thanksgiving we'll surprise shoppers with incredible deals currently known to only a few of us."
The eight items are in addition to the more than 70 "Black Friday" values announced before Friday.
Wal-Mart has focued its web strategy on driving store sales, and this is another example of that effort. "It's a great way to drive traffic form the web to the store," says Jim Okamura, senior retail consultant with J.C. Williams Group. He notes the initiative is similar to independent sites that leak sale informnation to shoppers, often with the collusion of the retailer. This gets the word out on the web, but keeps the information under control of Wal-Mart, rather than of a third-aprty site operator, Okamura notes.
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