Good news for bargain hunters: Gone are the days of having to stand in line at dawn and then elbow your way through a store to get your hands on coveted Black Friday deals, as many retailers have already launched their Black Friday sales in stores and online.

Target, Amazon and JCPenny were among the large retailers that released their promotions a week ahead of Thanksgiving, while Walmart and others dropped their deals on Monday.

Some experts say this is a broader shift toward spreading out discounts and sales throughout the month of November instead of just on Black Friday and its online counterpart, Cyber Monday.

Even so, Black Friday remains a popular day to shop for holiday gifts. Based on survey results, the National Retail Federation projected that 132 million people will go shopping that day, and almost two-thirds of them will do so in stores.

The preference for in-person shopping on Black Friday is a shift from last year, when the National Retail Federation estimated that 76.2 million people shopped in person and 90.6 million made purchases online.

Consumers who prefer to ditch the hustle and bustle in stores by looking for promotions and discounts online should be aware of retailer tricks meant to pressure shoppers into making a purchase, online scams, and porch thieves who are hoping to steal packages from your front door. Here are some tips from experts to help you make your way through the season’s first big shopping weekend.

Pressure to make impulse purchases

It’s already overwhelming to make your gift list and check it twice to ensure that you’re not missing anyone, whether it be your aunt in Boca Raton or your mailman down the street. It’s even more overwhelming to find one of those gifts on sale at an online retailer, only to see a tag in bold lettering that says “High Demand,” “Low stock” or “In 10 people’s carts,” because your next thought tends to be, “This could sell out, I need to get it now.”

These are often just mind games retailers and advertisers play that are “designed to spur us to make hasty spending decisions,” said R.S. Cross, campaign director for Public Interest Research Group.

The organization found that on top of urgent messaging, some sellers on the online marketplace Etsy are using fake countdown timers on deals that don’t expire.

PIRG tracked 20 bestselling or Etsy-curated products with countdown timers on deals and discovered that 16 timers reset for another 24 hours when the timer hit zero. The other four items further dropped in price when the timer ran out.

Other common tactics include displaying how much an item will cost by making monthly installments that “both make low-cost products’ prices seem cheaper and make expensive impulse purchases more doable,” according to the organization.

To help resist this manipulation, Consumer Reports suggests that consumers create a budget and stick to it. It’s easier said than done, especially when Black Friday deals are presented as limited-ime offers.

Consumer Reports also recommends starting shopping early. If you purchase an item now and see a price that has dropped later, you can contact customer service and they’ll usually refund the difference.

As you search for deals this week, Cross said, compare items across various online retailers “and don’t get distracted by offers you haven’t had the time to think through,” said Cross.

You can use online tools including Google Shopping, Price Grabber and Shopzilla to compare the price of products on various retailer outlets.

Avoid online scams

When you peruse the internet for sales from specific brands and retailers, make sure you’re clicking on and making purchases from their official websites.

Online security group McAfee identified a surge in counterfeit sites and phishing scams that use the names of popular luxury brands and tech products to lure consumers into purchasing products for what the consumer believes are unbelievably low prices. Instead, they’re giving away personal information (including credit card, address and account information) to cyber crooks.

McAfee researchers found these sorts of scams targeting footwear and handbag brands, including Adidas and Louis Vuitton. Scammers also tricked consumers by using the Apple brand on fake websites linked to stores selling counterfeit Apple items alongside unrelated brands.

Experts say the best way to counter these scams is to be skeptical of a product when the discount seems too good to be true. Carefully check the URL of a website to ensure that it’s legitimate — even minor variations in spelling or style are a telltale sign of a scam.

Porch pirates

Online purchases are easy because once you click the “complete order” button, all you have to do is wait for the package to arrive at your front door. But porch pirates may also be prowling for packages to arrive so they can swipe them.

These thieves steal packages primarily from residences whose front doors are easily visible and within 25 feet of the street, according to the Better Business Bureau.

In the past year, porch pirates have stolen approximately $12 billion worth of packages, according to Security.org. The security system analysts found that apartment renters experience package theft at double the rate of those who live in single-family homes.

To avoid becoming a package-theft victim, experts recommend that you schedule their delivery on a day you’ll be home. You can sign up for tracking notifications from a retailer, UPS, FedEx and USPS to remind you of the date and time of an expected delivery.

If you can block the visibility of your front door by parking your car in the driveway, that might help keep porch pirates at bay, Officer Drake Madison of the Los Angeles Police Department said.

If you know you won’t be home when a package arrives, LAPD recommends that you ask a trusted neighbor or friend to look out for the package and pick it up for you. Some delivery companies also offer the ability to change when and where a package will be dropped off.

You don’t have to have your package delivered to your home. Many retailers offer the option to have an item shipped to one of their brick-and-mortar stores, and they usually offer pick-ups at a customer service counter or a designated parking space in their lot.

Amazon has pick-up counters or self-service lockers at retailers, grocery stores and pharmacies. FedEx can hold your packages for up to seven days at one of its retail partners, including FedEx Office, Walgreens, Office Depot and Dollar General stores.

If you stick with having your packages delivered and you won’t be home to receive them, there are an assortment of lockboxes and secure, oversized mail slots available, although they can be costly. Alternatively, you can install a security camera or doorbell with a built in webcam, but that won’t necessarily stop the theft. Instead, it can gather the evidence needed to obtain a refund from the shipper and share with local law enforcement.

“If a specific area is being targeted and everyone makes a report, it shows police where porch thief issues are occurring and will allow them to deploy resources accordingly,” Madison said.

Steep price hikes could be on the way if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his pledge to impose sweeping new tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada and China.

Trump threatened to implement the tariffs on the country’s top three trading partners on his first day back in office, including a 10% tariff on products coming from China. In a pair of posts on Truth Social on Monday, he explained the decision as a way to crack down on illegal immigration and drugs.

“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States,” he said. “It is time for them to pay a very big price!”

But it’s ultimately consumers who could end up absorbing the brunt of those costs. When tariffs are levied against foreign imports, American companies have to pay taxes to the U.S. government on their purchases from other countries; the companies often pass on those extra costs to their customers.

California’s economy could be especially hard hit because of its heavy reliance on trade with China and Mexico.

“This is a bully effort to put everybody on notice,” said economist Chris Thornberg, founding partner of Beacon Economics in Los Angeles. “One of the reasons he uses tariffs is because it’s one of the few places that he actually has some leverage.”

Although Thornberg noted that it’s still a “giant remains-to-be seen” whether and how Trump’s proposed tariffs are implemented, consumer goods across the board could be dramatically affected by the changes.

Here are a few top categories:

Cars and car parts

Mexico was the United States’ top goods trading partner last year, surpassing China.

The country is a major manufacturer of passenger vehicles, light vehicles, trucks, auto parts, supplies and electric-vehicle technologies. Eighty-eight percent of vehicles produced in Mexico are exported, with 76% headed for the U.S., according to the International Trade Administration.

Automakers with manufacturing operations in Mexico include General Motors, Ford, Tesla, Audi, BMW, Honda, Kia, Mercedes Benz, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen. GM shares fell 9% and shares of Ford declined 2.6% on Tuesday.

Even before Trump’s latest round of tariff threats, auto-related companies shared how they planned to respond if new duties were levied.

“If we get tariffs, we will pass those tariff costs back to the consumer,” Phil Daniele, chief executive of AutoZone, said in the company’s most recent earnings call. “We’ll generally raise prices ahead of … what the tariffs will be.”

Toys

Last year, China accounted for 77% of toy imports, about 25 times greater than the total value of toy imports from Mexico, the next largest foreign source of supply, according to the National Retail Federation. U.S. producers, meanwhile, account for less than 1% of the toy market.

Earlier this month, the federation released a study that looked at how the tariffs that Trump proposed during his campaign for a second term could play out for consumers.

It found that the proposed tariffs — a universal 10% to 20% tariff on imports from all foreign countries and an additional 60% to 100% tariff on imports specifically from China — would apply to a wide range of toys imported into the U.S., including dolls, games and tricycles.

“Our analysis found that toy prices would face one of the highest increases,” the study concluded. “Prices of toys would increase by 36% to 56%.”

Apparel

The National Retail Federation study also analyzed more than 500 items of clothing including tops, bottoms, underwear, swimwear and socks, and found that prices “would rise significantly” — as much as 20.6%.

That would force consumers to pare spending on apparel. The higher prices and loss of spending power would hit low-income families especially hard, the group said, because low-income households spend three times as much of their after-tax income on apparel compared with high-income households.

“U.S. apparel manufacturers would benefit from the tariffs, but at a high cost to families,” the study said. “Even after accounting for domestic manufacturing gains and new tariff revenue, the result is a net $16 billion to $18 billion loss for the U.S. economy, with the burden carried by U.S. consumers.”

Produce

With Americans already wary of high grocery prices, Trump’s proposed tariffs would increase the costs of several imported fruits and vegetables, said Jerry Nickelsburg, faculty director of UCLA Anderson Forecast, an economic forecasting organization.

The vast majority of U.S. produce imports come from Mexico and Canada, including avocados, cucumbers, potatoes and mushrooms. The U.S. spent $88 billion on agricultural imports from the two countries in fiscal year 2024, which ended Sept. 30.

“Grocery prices will go up because at least some of that tariff will be passed on to consumers,” Nickelsburg said. “If there are no good substitutes, then producers are going to try and pass the whole thing on.”

Household appliances and other electronics

Big-ticket electronic products such as televisions, laptops, smartphones, dishwashers and washing machines — many of which are manufactured in Mexico and China, or made with parts imported from those countries — would probably become more expensive.

The U.S. imported $76 billion worth of computers and other electronics from Mexico in 2023, and more than a quarter of U.S. imports from China consist of electronic equipment.

Shoes

Imported footwear products already face high U.S. duties, particularly those made in China.

On Tuesday, the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America expressed concern at the threat of new tariffs, saying such policies would make it more difficult for consumers to afford shoes and other everyday essentials.

“We hope President-elect Trump rethinks these tariffs as they relate to footwear, as such measures would place an unnecessary burden on American families when budgets are already stretched thin,” Matt Priest, the president of the trade association, said in a statement. “We urge the President to consider the profound impact these tariffs will have on working families and the broader economy.”

Dickies, one of the best-known workwear brands in the country, will move its headquarters from Fort Worth to Costa Mesa to be with its sister brand streetwear icon Vans.

The move represents a real estate consolidation by VF Corp., which owns Dickies and Vans as well as outdoorsy brands the North Face, Timberland and JanSport.

The decision marks a rare reversal of a string of business headquarters moves from California to Texas. High-profile departures include Chevron, one of world’s largest oil companies, which said in August it would relocate its headquarters from San Ramon to Houston. Elon Musk has said he will move his companies SpaceX and X from California to Texas.

By contrast in scale, Dickies’ jump from a city known as Cowtown to one once nicknamed Goat Hill will affect about 120 employees, said Ashley McCormack, director of external communications at VF.

“This move allows VF to further consolidate its U.S. real estate portfolio as part of its stated business turnaround strategy,” McCormack said in a statement.

Putting the people who work at Dickies and Vans together is also intended to “create an even more vibrant campus where creativity and best practice sharing can thrive through greater collaboration and connections,” she said.

The move, perhaps including the relocation of employees to California, is expected to be complete by May. Vans’ offices, which are ringed at the top with Vans’ famous checkers, are at 1588 S. Coast Drive in Costa Mesa near the 405 Freeway.

Retail industry observer Dominick Miserandino didn’t see the Dickies move as part of larger trend, calling it instead a decision to optimize the use of property VF owns in Costa Mesa instead of keeping Dickies’ rented headquarters in Fort Worth.

“People are ascribing other things to it,” Miserando, said, when real estate ownership “might be the bigger factor than the angle of how strange it is” to see a company going from Texas to California.

“Clearly you’re making a decision like this for operational efficiency,” said Miserandino, chief executive of industry trade publication RetailWire.

Denver-based VF has faced financial headwinds in recent years with the company’s net revenue declining annually since its 2022 fiscal year.

The company has a revitalization strategy centered on its Vans brand that was down 11% in revenue the second quarter ending Sept. 28, a marked improvement from the prior quarter when the brand was down 22%, executives told investors during its earnings call last month, real estate data provider CoStar reported. The Dickies brand was also down 11% in the second quarter compared to a 14% decline revenue in the first quarter.

“We have a map back to growth for Vans,” VF President Bracken P. Darrell said on the call. He didn’t offer details , but did acknowledge mistakes that occurred after a boom period from 2015 to 2020, when the brand became popular with cultural tastemakers and celebrities, leading to sales among a larger customer base.

“We actually took our eye off to the core youth audience that had been the lifeblood of Vans,” Darrell said. “The brand had to evolve, but rather than continue to respect and serve the youth audience that had built the brand, we only fed the trend that grew it rapidly. We largely withdrew marketing to the core youth, and instead focused on everyone else.”

News of Dickies’ move shook some people in Fort Worth, where the company was co-founded in 1922 by E.E. “Colonel” Dickie and has a high profile as a local business. Dickies Arena is one of the city’s premier entertainment venues for concerts, community events and the annual Forth Worth Stock Show & Rodeo.

“The announcement last week that Dickies is leaving its home base in Fort Worth for a new headquarters in California shocked city leaders and left the brand’s most loyal fans in Texas dumbfounded,” the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.