BLACK FRIDAY: Walmart Officially Announces-Their Deals Are Our Deals

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The Black Friday price wars have officially gone nuclear, as Walmart announces that it’s not going to play the dodgy little game of holding and releasing Black Friday deal sheets any longer, instead declaring that now everybody’s Black Friday deal is their Black Friday deal.

It’s pretty much what it says on the box, as Walmart makes Black Friday shoppers the king of offers: bring us an ad from a rival business, and we’ll match their price instantly on the same product.

Of course, it’s something of a weak-sauce offer in that Walmart doesn’t actually carry a lot of what other stores carry. If I go in with an ad from, say, Best Buy listing a 50 inch Samsung LED, chances are I’ll get laughed out of Walmart because their LED television offerings are maybe one or two televisions at most, and chances are the one I want isn’t on their shelves. But still, this is an interesting step for Walmart to take, and given their reputation as an “everything under one roof” sort of store, they just might get some extra sales out of this from people who don’t want to drive all the way to one big box store or another just to get hands on a certain item when they can go to Walmart instead and get it for the exact same price.

And indeed, the prizes for such moves are high–fully 138 million people are expected to descend on stores on Black Friday, up a surprising four million from last year. These figures come out of the National Retail Federation, and I suppose they’d know, but I really don’t see how the economy’s improved sufficiently to draw that many shoppers out into the open, especially up over last year.

Still though, it’s downright impressive to see the lengths Walmart is looking to go in order to get people in the stores, and if you’re looking for a deal, Walmart just might be the place to hit on Black Friday, especially since many of their stores will be open all night anyway.