This is Thanksgiving week, which means Black Friday shopping is coming up fast.
Along with everything else in 2020, Thanksgiving looks to be quite different this year. Since COVID rates are up, officials are encouraging people to hunker down.
If you’re here hunkering down in a Charleston beach house, you may prefer to leave the cooking to someone else. Here are some great options to get a Thanksgiving dinner to go, at either local places or chain establishments.
Then, the day after Thanksgiving is of course the traditional kick off of the holiday shopping season. Black Friday shopping used to be the manic stuff of legend, with folks lined up hours before opening time, then charging inside like wild buffalo to grab the best deals for themselves.
Online shopping and other factors have thankfully changed those dynamics somewhat. Many merchants now start their Black Friday shopping deals days or even more than a week earlier. It’s all in an effort to entice people to spend holiday dollars even sooner.
Over recent years, a lot of people have decided to forego in person Black Friday shopping altogether, and just online shop instead. This makes perfect sense, and no time more than this particular year. Amazon, FedEx and UPS will be busier than ever, that’s for sure.
The Best Black Friday Shopping Discounts
WalletHub has crunched the numbers, analyzed the data and come out with their official ranking of the best Black Friday shopping merchants (and the worst). They studied over 7,000 deals from the 26 biggest retailers in the country.
Basically, they discovered that Black Friday shopping deals average a discount of 32%. The highest they found was JCPenney, at 56.71%, while the lowest was ACE Hardware at 8.63%.
Here’s the top ten….
JCPenney (56.71%)
Macy’s (55.97%)
Kohl’s (51.87%)
Belk (50.01%)
Lenovo (44.06%)
Nordstrom (39.05%)
GameStop (38.81%)
Office Depot and OfficeMax (33.29%)
The Home Depot (32.07%)
Meijer (32.02%)
Apparently you can find the best deals on computers and phones. Check out the whole WalletHub Black Friday ranking here. Live 5 News also has more on the subject.
Shop Local in Charleston
Black Friday shopping is also a great chance to shop local, if at all possible. The Lowcountry boasts a huge number of wonderful merchants unique to this area.
If you have children to shop for, you have plenty of especially good options. The fine folks at Hulafrog have put together a list of the top 22 local businesses where you can do holiday shopping for the kids in your life. They include some fun ones like Wonder Works (a realty cool toy store), Shrimp & Grits Kids (lovely smocked clothing), and the Pink Chicken on King. Access the whole list here.
So if you’re taking part in Black Friday shopping, you may score some deals. And don’t forget to support local merchants, they sure could use the business. And when you’re shopping for a luxury beach house stay, just give us a call at EP.
All best,
Lowcountry Lisa
your Isle of Palms vacation blogger