Think you’re getting a jump on holiday shopping by digesting the Black Friday sales ads along with your turkey and football this Thanksgiving? Forget it – you’re already days behind the real pros.

During the past several weeks, the ads for Friday’s super-sales at retailers such as Kmart, Target, Wal-Mart, Sears and Best Buy have been slowly finding their way onto the Internet as the serious shoppers hatch their diabolical plans to capture America’s most wanted holiday bargains.

Shoppers stopping in at blackfriday.gottadeal.com would know, for example, that Sears will be offering microwaves for $39.99, Best Buy will have DVDs for as little as $2.99 and Kmart will have a 20-inch TV for $69.99 and a DVD player to go with it for $19.99.

According to a poll by Maritz Research, more than a third of American shoppers plan to hit the stores on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, when some of the deepest discounts of the year can be found.

Called Black Friday to mark the moment many retailers start earning a profit for the year – or get their ledgers into the black – the day kicks off what is usually a spectacular weekend. Last year, according to National Retail Federation, shoppers spent $23 billion on Black Friday weekend and more than $400 billion during the holiday season.

The trend toward using online resources to get a jump on the shopping competition is growing. According to Internet trend watchers at Hitwise, the top five Black Friday sites saw a 167 percent traffic increase for the week ending Nov. 11 compared with the same week last year.

Operators of the Web sites say they receive ads for Black Friday sales in advance through people who work for the stores, or through other sources, and that the donors rarely identify themselves. Once they’re out there, the ads multiply quickly as they pop up on the various sites.

The super-shoppers – who tend to refer to Black Friday simply as BF – have been chatting up their plans and sharing strategies on the gottadeal.com forums for weeks.

Some are so determined to get their bargains they are forgoing Thanksgiving dinner to get in line Thursday afternoon for Friday morning store openings.

AZwildcatsR1 is one: “Last year, I stood in line at Best Buy from 3:00 Thanksgiving Day until opening the next morning. I saved $1,500. That’s like getting paid $100 an hour!”

“My roommate was really convinced that I was completely insane for getting up so early to go shopping,” Peachiekeen wrote. “Now that I have pointed out several BF sales on items she is looking to buy she’s gonna get up early too!!”

Babsmac says speed, combined with an early arrival, is the key.

Here’s her recap of her experience at Wal-Mart, which brings its best deals to the shopping floor on shipping pallets:

“I got there at 3 a.m. last year and had plenty of time to gather price matching items, scope out the pallets, and make friends with people at other pallets. Then I stood firm by my Cabbage Patch (pallet), grabbed two, grabbed a nearby Noah’s Ark, passed one Cabbage Patch to a lady who had snagged me a light saber, ran to electronics, crawled under people and grabbed a portable DVD player and case and flew to the checkout. I was the first one there and was out of Wal-Mart in 8 minutes. It was a blast!”

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Even as they battle the elements and the clock, the super-shoppers have little patience for those who have little patience. As Sbwolfer posted to the forum, his pet peeve is “Grumpy shoppers who try to kill my holiday shopping buzz. I am in the holiday mood. If ya don’t want to wait in long lines and deal with the crowds then stay home.”

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Predictably, all this does not sit well with the retailers, who would rather start Black Friday with a level playing field for all shoppers.

“Some people take it into their own hands to kind of spill the beans for retailers. If the retailers wanted the public to know there will be $300 laptops for sale, they would have put that information out there,” said Kathy Grannis of the National Retail Federation.

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Of the lengths to which some shoppers will go to get a head start on Black Friday, Grannis said, “Some people are willing to do anything to get what’s on their wish list or their gift list.”

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Many of Black Friday’s best discounts, of course, are offered in limited quantities – that’s why shoppers line up outside stores hours before they open. Knowing in advance what products are going to be discounted offers several advantages, according to forum members.

Not all the strategies for exploiting these advantages seem quite fair, and they don’t all work at all stores, but here’s what the online chatter recommends.

– Price adjustments. Most stores offer consumers rebates to make up the difference in price if an item goes on sale within a set period after it is purchased. Some shoppers, aware that an item will be on the sale list, buy it a week before Black Friday, then bring it in during the sale period for a price adjustment.

– Layaway. At stores that still allow layaway, shoppers essentially place a hold on sale items in the days leading up to the big day, then claim their items in time to reap the discounts.

– Price matching. Many stores offer to match their competition’s sale prices, so if one store has a certain TV on sale another may match the price, but without attracting hordes of competing bargain hunters.

– Hiding. This practice is looked down on even by some of the shopping elite, though many admit in the forums that they do it. Simply take an item that is due for discount and hide it in another department of the store. If store staff doesn’t find it and return it to its proper place, you can pick it up on Black Friday even if you get there later in the day.

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Some Sites of the Season

According to Hitwise, a New York-based company that tracks online market trends, these are the top five sites for information Black Friday sales. All have seen tremendous increases in traffic this year.

www.bfads.net: Offers copies of the ads, message boards for shopping, discussions and a searchable database of discount information.

www.blackfriday.gottadeal.com: Offers forums for discussion of shopping strategies, searchable lists of expected Black Friday bargains and scans of the ads that will appear in Thanksgiving Day newspapers.

www.blackfriday.info: Offers copies of the ads, forums and an e-mail alert system to notify shoppers when new ads become available.

www.blackfridayads.com: Has copies of the ads, searchable database and alerts.

www.theblackfriday.com: Offers copies of the ads.

JL END ORR

(J. Scott Orr can be contacted at scott.orr(at)newhouse.com)

AP-NY-11-21-06 1518EST