Forget Thanksgiving. For a lot of Americans, Black Friday is the week's biggest holiday and the most-awaited shopping day of the year. Now, Walmart and Target just fired the opening salvo by intensifying the holiday price war against online retail giant Amazon.

Walmart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and other brick-and-mortar chains are offering bigger discounts on this year's Black Friday compared to last year's. A bigger online selection is also offered to lure customers away from Amazon.com Inc., in a gamble they hope would squeeze into their profit margins.

Based on a Market Track study of holiday circulars, Walmart is offering an average discount of 39 percent, compared with 35 percent last year. At Target, the price cuts grew to 38 percent from 36 percent, as reported by Bloomberg.

To build its online stocks, Walmart tripled its e-commerce selection to 23 million products this year. On the other hand, Target is offering 15 percent off of almost all its products in its stores and website for two days, Sunday and Monday. These Black Friday specials are aimed to compete with Amazon and the fact that customers are increasingly making their purchases online.

The strategy is also aimed to lessen the burden on consumers having to wait in long lines often as early as just before midnight on Thanksgiving outside the stores. Walmart and others are steering customers toward online deals rather than just physical stores. The streak of online promotions is part of what retailers are advertising as "Cyber Week', according to STL Today.

With shoppers making their purchases online, the urgency of making deals on Black Friday itself would lessen. Customers will have lots of choices without having to take up long queues outside the stores. In the past, fights would break out often with fatal consequences. Customers now have better choices when shopping and getting big discounts to go along with it.

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