The hordes of shoppers who still enjoy standing in lines and fighting for parking spaces, on the “Black Friday” after Thanksgiving is an offline event. Or is it?
Local sites are prepping shoppers who want to see what’s available at the stores, including The Deal Map, Milo.com, Local.com and SuperPages. Other local media companies, including The Los Angeles Times, are helping small businesses get in on the game for CyberMonday.
American Express is also getting in on the game with Small Business Saturday, a promotion for SMBs that include a $25 gift certificate for consumers who shop participating SMBs, and a cash donation to Girls, Inc. of $1 per “like” of the effort’s Facebook page (867,594 “likes” have been registered.) We also noticed that Yelp is involved with the effort, listing several recommended local SMBs on a geo-targeted basis, which is really useful.
The DealMap’s effort is categorizing and mapping more than 150,000 unique Black Friday product offers at nearly 50,000 retail locations. Smart phone owners can use their phones to check out the deals when they are on the go, and will even be notified if they are near a deal. The site reports that 300,000 people have downloaded its app.
Milo.com is also in on the game, providing sales information and more importantly, real time inventory feeds for more than 5,000 products. Its inventory feeds will include major chains, such as Target, Toys “R” Us and Macy’s.
Local.com, meanwhile, has integrated the local and daily deals from The Deal map along with major retailer coupon codes and deals from Savings.com; loyalty card coupons from Coupons.com; and weekly circular ads from ShopLocal. SuperPages.com has also done a great job integrating various kinds of coupons.
The LA Times, for its part, is supporting Cyber Monday with a Shopping Directory that is being published in its Main News section on 11/29, and also accessible on latimes.com.