Black Friday 2011 Guide: News, deals, maps, advice and more

Black Friday 2011

A guide to the holiday shopping season’s unofficial kickoff

‘They almost ran me over’

(Jeff Chiu / AP)

Danielle Douglas and Steven Overly

Shoppers this holiday season finished their Thanksgiving dinner early on Thursday — or skipped it altogether — and headed to stores that offered night-owl hours.

New research explains Black Friday shopping

Olga Khazan

Here’s a look at the four scientific reasons we’re motivated to shop on Black Friday, and how retailers can use them year-round.

How to shop like a geek

Joshua Topolsky

COLUMN | Joshua Topolsky provides tips for how to buy a tablet, laptop and other cool gadgetry.

Small Business Saturday gets bigger

Olga Khazan

Business giants team up to help small companies boost sales the day after Black Friday.

Amazon selling smartphones for a cent

Hayley Tsukayama

Yes, it’s a gimmick in that nabbing the low-priced phones also requires a two-year contract, but the phone selection is much better than the normal roster of the free phones that come with plans.

Top 10 tips for Black Friday virgins

Maggie Fazeli Fard

For the uninitiated, Black Friday can be daunting at best and, at worst, downright terrifying. A D.C.-based retail expert offers advice on making the most of the big shopping day.

Video

Shoppers pay for their purchases at an Old Navy store as 'Black Friday' shoppers get an early start at the Citadel outlet stores on Thanksgiving in Los Angeles, California November 24, 2011. Bargain hunters flocked to U.S. stores late Thursday and overnight Friday, searching for deals while fretting about their own shaky economic well-being. Some stores, looking to grab as big a piece as possible of what is expected to be a middling holiday shopping season, pushed post-Thanksgiving openings into Thursday evening or opened at midnight for the first time in years, getting a jump start on 'Black Friday', the traditional beginning to the U.S. holiday shopping season. REUTERS/Gus Ruelas (UNITED STATES - Tags: BUSINESS)

Black Friday shopping begins

Associated Press

Shoppers line up in New York’s Times Square and around the nation to begin the holiday shopping season. Americans are expected to spend nearly $500 billion over the next month.