• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 

2

Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'

3

Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics

1

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 

2

Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'

3

Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics
TechBlack Friday

Want the Best Online Shopping Deals? Buy on Thanksgiving

By
Don Reisinger
Don Reisinger
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Don Reisinger
Don Reisinger
Down Arrow Button Icon
November 25, 2015, 10:30 AM ET
A parent buys Christmas gifts for her three children at a Toys R Us store in New York's Times Square.
New York, UNITED STATES: Mia Chaney (R) buys Christmas gifts for her three children at a Toys R Us store in New York's Times Square, 25 November 2005, one day after Thanksgiving, known as "Black Friday", the traditional start of the holiday shopping season. The "black" in the term comes from the standard accounting practice of using red ink to denote losses, and black ink to denote profits. AFP PHOTO/Stan Honda (Photo credit should read STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)Photograph by Stan Honda — AFP/Getty Images

If you’re feeling tempted by promises of big discounts on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, here’s a tip: try shopping online on Thanksgiving instead.

While Thanksgiving Day may be about eating turkey and watching football, it’s also the best day of the year for deals, including for electronics, according to Tyler White, senior manager with Adobe’s Digital Index analyst team.

“Expect the biggest discounts on Thanksgiving Day,” says White. “All retailers know that once people get going shopping, they don’t stop until they have to, so the sooner you can get them started, the better.”

Savvy shoppers who take advantage of the Thanksgiving Day deals can, in theory, save a little more money than any other time during the holidays. Of course, capitalizing on the deals may require a lot of research and time spent clicking through various websites for the best deals.

In reality, the entire five days, from Thanksgiving to the following Monday, known as Cyber Monday, are filled with discounts. And it’s all designed to get shoppers to spend more than they ever intended to.

Yory Wurmser, retail analyst at eMarketer, says that because Thanksgiving is mostly an online shopping day, retailers have plenty of competition. Offering the best deals on Thanksgiving helps them attract customers early and, in theory, keep them spending during the entire holiday weekend.

“There’s a push to get ahead of the competition on Thanksgiving, and there is a feeling that Thanksgiving Day is becoming a really important launch date for e-commerce,” Wurmser says. “It’s certainly rivaling the other days in terms of volume of sales.”

Last month, Adobe (ADBE), which tracks $7.50 of every $10 spent online at the top 500 U.S. retailers and 80% of all transactions at the top 100 U.S. retailers, predicted $1.6 billion in Thanksgiving Day sales online. That’s an 18% increase from the prior year.

Because of that growth and changing behavior by retailers, White and Yurmser believe Thanksgiving Day will become a bigger online shopping day than Cyber Monday within the next couple of years.

“In the last couple of years, the big brick-and-click stores (retailers with both brick-and-mortar locations and e-commerce outlets) actually tend to see more online shopping on Thanksgiving and Black Friday than on Cyber Monday,” White says.

According to Wurmser, the smartphone will be a critical tool in Thanksgiving’s online shopping. After eating their turkey, many shoppers will use to their smartphones and tablets to find deals. In fact, Wurmser and his fellow analysts at eMarketer say the use of mobile devices for shopping will reach their peak on Thanksgiving Day.

“Mobile is the biggest shopping method on Thanksgiving Day for obvious reasons,” Wurmser says, explaining that many people take their mobile devices with them on trips and to visit family.

In a statement last month, Adobe said mobile devices would inch ahead of desktops for the first time on Thanksgiving Day as the main source of traffic to online retailers. Just over half—51%—of online shopping visits will be made through smartphones and tablets, the company said.

But mobile devices will represent a far smaller share of online sales for Thanksgiving. Spending through mobile devices is expected to account for only 29% of the overall dollars spent, a 12% increase compared to Thanksgiving Day last year, the company said. The data suggests that for many consumers, Thanksgiving is a day to browse deals from mobile devices, not to buy, experts say. But that is changing.

When shoppers actually start shopping on Thanksgiving, they’ll find some nice deals. According to Adobe, the average discount on Thanksgiving will be 26% off original list prices. Black Friday, meanwhile, will register an average discount of around 25%, followed by Cyber Monday at approximately 20%, the company said.

But before you run out and order gifts on Thanksgiving, there’s another consideration: Availability. According to Adobe, “out-of-stock incidents,” or periods when products are unavailable, will hit 83% on Thanksgiving Day. Out-of-stock incidents will dip slightly from Black Friday through the weekend. By Cyber Monday, however, products are often picked over and out-of-stock incidents will be up over 116% compared to their baseline, according to Adobe.

“Thanksgiving deals tend to be more lucrative because they’re often for bigger-ticket items with a steeper discount,” said Jill Gonzalez, an analyst with WalletHub, a company that provides personal financial advice. “Of course, ‘supplies are limited’ for these earlier deals.”

So the strategy for finding the best deals this week seems clear: look for deals on Thanksgiving, but do it early to minimize the risk of products being out of stock.

Sign up for Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter about the business of technology.

For more on Thanksgiving, check out the following Fortune video:

About the Author
By Don Reisinger
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

allbirds
AILayoffs
Allbirds’ 600% stock surge says a lot about how ‘AI washing’ became the new ‘greenwashing’
By Suvrat Dhanorkar and The ConversationMay 21, 2026
1 hour ago
musk
InvestingIPOs
‘We do not want humans to have the same fate as dinosaurs’: SpaceX IPO reads like Hollywood fantasy version of the future
By Bernard Condon and The Associated PressMay 21, 2026
2 hours ago
murdoch
Big TechMedia
James Murdoch vows ‘ambitious journalism and agenda-setting conversations’ as he takes over New York, Vox brands
By Jocelyn Noveck and The Associated PressMay 21, 2026
2 hours ago
Traders work after a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Wednesday, March 18, 2026.
InvestingMarkets
Wall Street thinks there’s a chance the S&P 500 could push 20% higher by 2027
By Eleanor PringleMay 21, 2026
3 hours ago
Elon Musk sits with his fists together, looking up.
NewslettersTerm Sheet
SpaceX’s IPO filing is full of surprises
By Allie GarfinkleMay 21, 2026
4 hours ago
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiling the company's new manned spacecraft in Hawthorne, Calif. on May 29, 2014. (Photo: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
NewslettersFortune Tech
Rollout complete: SpaceX files IPO prospectus
By Andrew NuscaMay 21, 2026
5 hours ago

Most Popular

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 
Workplace Culture
Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 
By Preston ForeMay 19, 2026
2 days ago
Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'
Success
Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'
By Preston ForeMay 20, 2026
24 hours ago
Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics
Future of Work
Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics
By Mike Householder and The Associated PressMay 17, 2026
4 days ago
Dr. Bernice King on why companies that walked back DEI were never truly committed: 'If you retreat that quick…that reveals who you really are'
Workplace Culture
Dr. Bernice King on why companies that walked back DEI were never truly committed: 'If you retreat that quick…that reveals who you really are'
By Preston ForeMay 19, 2026
2 days ago
Pay transparency is exposing a bigger problem: Most companies can't explain why they pay what they pay
Workplace Culture
Pay transparency is exposing a bigger problem: Most companies can't explain why they pay what they pay
By Sydney LakeMay 20, 2026
19 hours ago
Current price of oil as of May 20, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of May 20, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerMay 20, 2026
1 day ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.