If you’re getting up before the sun on Black Friday morning to purchase a $50 pair of boots, which Perry’s Footwear & Collections is offering — but only between 5am and 7am — then coffee and perhaps a chourico and egg sandwich from the new Baked cafe in the Bermudiana Arcade — open from 2am — could be in order.

Black Friday looks set to be a major shopping event again this year with retailers gearing up with offers and ‘door busters’ designed to entice shoppers into Hamilton and to spend money in the early hours of the morning.

The day, which launches the Christmas shopping season and traditionally that puts retailers’ accounts into the ‘black’, has been regularly supported by Bermuda’s largest retailers including Gibbons Company, The Phoenix Group and AS Cooper’s — which advertised yesterday that it is opening this year at 6am, as well as many smaller businesses.

Gosling’s Wines & Spirits announced they are having their own version of Black Friday — ‘Red, white and bubbly Friday’, with 28 per cent off on select wines by the case, and they’re offering special discounts on select Riedel glassware.

People’s Pharmacy on Victoria Street is advertising that its loyalty card holders will get 20 per cent off today from 4pm to 8.30pm in the toys and baby’s department, 25 per cent off on Friday morning from 6am to 7.35am in toys and baby’s, as well as hair, beauty and Christmas items, and then 15 per cent from 4pm to 8.30pm, again in toys and baby’s. Those who are not loyalty card holders get 15 per cent off on Friday.

The Royal Gazette advertising manager Eric Smelser said businesses have been gearing up all week for what is now one of the biggest shopping days of the year, and the newspaper has launched a special website for the event.

He said: “The Royal Gazette advertising department launched blackfriday.royalgazette.com to connect Bermuda’s Black Friday shoppers with our advertisers.

“We thought it a good idea to provide shoppers with a digital version — optimised for small screens — of the advertising that appeared in the pages of our print product and in the banner ads online this week.”

Mr Smelser said there has been marked change this year in the Black Friday marketing techniques. “In an effort to stay ahead of the competition, many of our advertisers ran promotions throughout the week — hoping to catch the early attention and early dollars of our readers.”

CellOne, for example, has a door buster which is hard to resist — a Blu Studio C HD for $0. And they’ve been offering the deal all week, along with Samsung Galaxy S4 at $99, BlackberryZ30 at $139 and the Apple iPhone5C 16GB at $289. The desired LG G3 is $349, and they are also offering an additional $100 off when a customer buys an additional three ggbs of data.

Daisy & Mac is promoting ‘Grey Thursday’ with up to 75 per cent off store wide. Complete Office, in a Royal Gazette advertisement, said: ‘We don’t like getting up early either!’ and is offering deep discounts between 8pm and midnight on Thursday.

The Royal Gazette has also produced a run-of-the-paper advertising section and a front page wrap for today’s newspaper. “These two products, in combination with a strong showing the last seven to ten days of pre-Black Friday ads demonstrates how important this annual shopping event is to our business community,” said Mr Smelser.

“Promoted in print, on our website and through Facebook, this site is a first foray into this type of digital value added for our advertisers. We intend to measure the traffic and our own production efforts in order to inform future efforts such as this.”

Shops are also utilising all forms of marketing to promote their special offers. Pulp & Circumstance told Facebook friends: “We will be open from 5am to 9pm! The earlier you come the more you save! See you all there!”

Calypso Bermuda is also promoting its group of shops — MaxMara, Calypso, Voila, FCUK and Women’s Secret — on Facebook for Black Friday sales and late opening hours, with dozens of photographs of Christmas decorations and retail offerings.

Other retailers are announcing their special deals via e-mail blasts — Perry Footwear & Collections, in addition to offering selected boots at $50 between 5am and 7am, is offering them at $75 between 7am and closing time

The high-end shoe store is also offering 45 per cent off store wide between 5am and 6am, and then reducing that percentage in five per cent increments until 8am, by which time the sale price will settle at 30 per cent off until closing time.

Online retailers are also getting into the act, with Cahoot, which promotes itself as Bermuda’s online marketplace selling handmade and artisan items and art among its items, offering a sign-up deal that starts at 4pm today until 11.59pm on Friday. The retail website’s founder Courtney Bushner said: “We are strongly encouraging people to do some local shopping this year.

“Vendors will be able to sign up for the monthly subscription package for free — worth $35 with the tiered commission, seven per cent to ten per cent.”