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Retailers, already under pressure to ring up boffo Black Friday sales, are freaking out over fears their carefully planned strategies to attract shoppers are being leaked to rivals.
Black Friday ads have been leaked early for years, of course, but this fall more retailers are cracking down.
Home Depot this month fired off a “heavy-handed” legal threat to a Web company that hosts BradsDeals.com, according to Brad Wilson, CEO of the online coupon site.
The home-improvement giant’s beef: that BradsDeals had released unauthorized early copies of its doorbuster deals for the post-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy.
“It was a little over-the-top, a kind of ‘cease-and-desist’ letter,” Wilson told The Post. “It might be a game to us, but it’s blood sport to them.”
BradsDeals responded by removing the ad, he said.
Siva V. Kumar, CEO of shopping search engine TheFind.com, likewise says retailers that send authorized versions of their ads to his company’s Catalogue shopping app have begun to serve up legalese on the side.
“Normally, they just tell you in an e-mail, ‘Don’t publish it until this day,’ ” Kumar said. “This year, I got a separate legal notice from a separate lawyer saying, ‘Don’t show this, you can’t do that.’ ”
Execs at coupon sites note that Macy’s and Costco are among the fiercest Black Friday coupon cops. Earlier this month, Dollar General made a round of calls to coupon sites after its Black Friday circular was leaked.
“We were planning to put it out a couple of days before Friday — not a week-and-a-half before Friday,” Dollar General spokesman Dan MacDonald said. “It compromises our competitive position to have it out that early.”
As Black Friday deals increasingly migrate to the Web, it’s becoming easier for shoppers and competitors alike to gauge a store’s discounting strategy and adjust their plans accordingly, experts say.
In the case of Home Depot, the company’s main concern was that discounts throughout its chain vary by region, according to spokeswoman Jamee Lawson.
“The last thing we want is for people to see the ad online and then go to the store and be disappointed,” Lawson said.
Not all chains are concerned about leaks, however, and some are even said to do the leaking themselves to generate hype.
Walmart this year has relaxed its stance after years of hawkishness, insiders say. And some retailers appear to have shifted their policy mid-season.
Earlier this month, Ace Hardware and Bon-Ton department stores asked BradsDeals.com to take down their leaked Black Friday ads, BradDeals’ Wilson said.
Both chains, however, “changed their mind after a while, and when they did so they gave us a better-quality version,” according to Wilson.
Officials at Ace Hardware and Bon-Ton couldn’t be reached for comment.
It’s not just prices that have raised concerns. Deckers, the owner of Ugg Australia, has mounted an aggressive campaign in recent weeks against counterfeiters of its boots, according to Leah Evert-Burks, director of brand protection.
“Black Friday sales give people a sense of urgency, and most of the advertisements you see out there are linking to counterfeit websites,” Evert-Burks said.