Is This the End of Black Friday “Sneak Previews” at GottaDeal.com?

The day after Thanksgiving–also known as Black Friday–is one of the biggest shopping days of the year. Retailers roll out numerous specials, bargains, discounts, coupons and deals in an effort to grab a piece of the holiday spending. The stores are often filled with Christmas decorations, and customer service representatives pass out coupons and sales fliers in an effort to encourage shoppers to buy, buy, buy!

In the past, websites like GottaDeal.com issued “sneak previews” of retailers’ Black Friday deals. This service was extremely useful to consumers, as it helped us plan our shopping excursions. Deep discounts on popular items or special “early bird” sales was sometimes enough to sway us into choosing one store over another.

But according to a statement on the GottaDeal.com website, these “sneak previews” might be a thing of the past. GottaDeal.com states that the legal representatives of Wal-Mart have sent them a letter that threatens legal action if GottaDeal.com posts Wal-Marts Black Friday bargains before the store releases the ad.

GottaDeal.com is encouraging all consumers to send a letter or email to Wal-Mart’s customer feedback. The bargain shopping website rightly points out that if one store can stop the “sneak previews,” others may soon do the same. The end result would be that consumers would no longer have advanced notice of special Black Friday bargains.

If organization and a planned holiday gift list is part of your Black Friday shopping, you may want to consider sending some feedback to Wal-Mart about their Black Friday sales policy.