BATON ROUGE - Black Friday is here and it is bigger, earlier, and more complicated than ever. Shoppers are lining up for bargains, but the biggest sale of the year is no longer confined to a single day. Retailers are stretching deals across weeks, even months, to catch buyers early.

“It’s the official start to the holiday shopping season,” said Dan Rice, an associate professor of marketing at LSU.

The holiday shopping marathon now stretches from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. For consumers, this means more time to shop but also more decisions to make.

“It’s really the big day that people mark as the start not only to the season but also to what we sometimes call Cyber Week, which ends with Cyber Monday,” Rice said.

Expect a mix of deals this year. Prices may vary depending on where items are made. Some U.S.-made products may not drop as much because of tariffs, while other items could be steeply discounted.

“It’s going to be very varied depending on the type of product. If you’re buying something that was made in the U.S., you might see less of a price decrease than you expect because they got around a lot of the tariffs,” Rice explained.

The key to a real bargain is research. Knowing the usual price of the item you want is the only way to separate real deals from hype.

“I think the big thing is to know if you’re getting a good deal. You really ought to do some research on the particular items you’re looking at and know whether the deal is as good as they say it is or if that price is basically what you get at any time of the year,” Rice said.

Black Friday may have started as a single day, but now it has become a full-blown season. Shoppers are encouraged to shop smart, compare prices, and stay focused on planned purchases rather than getting distracted by hype. The real deal is the one you planned for.