(Image source from: Walmart declares early Thanksgiving sales)

Walmart is all prepped up for the Thanksgiving Day. Ahead of the “Turkey Day”, America's retail giant has announced an early opening of the annual Black Friday weekend sales that will kickoff at Thanksgiving evening - two hours earlier than last year.

The announcement comes after other major retailers like Kmart, Target, Best Buy and Macy's too agreed to keep their stores open for holiday shopping this year. Last year, Walmart faced a nationwide protest for keeping its doors open on Thanksgiving.

Walmart announced that it will host two major sales events — one at 6 p.m. And the other at 8 p.m. on Thursday, a day before the Black Friday.

“With this year's six-day shorter holiday shopping season and low rates of consumer confidence following the government shutdown, Walmart is upping its efforts to draw in more customers: offering what experts said were impressive deals and guaranteeing more products to customers in line during the Thursday sales,” wrote the USA Today.

AW: Suchorita Dutta Choudhury