For U.S. merchants, Black Friday is a huge extravaganza of deals offered and prices dropped in an attempt to entice as many shoppers as possible through their doors. In light of this sort of retail holiday, Jon Holmquist founded Bitcoin Black Friday. This year will mark the third iteration of this event and plans are already in motion to make it even bigger than last year.

Save the date: Black Friday (and therefore Bitcoin Black Friday) takes place this year on Friday, November 28th.

And, for those champing at the bit to know the deals, stay tuned for Wednesday, November 26th when the Black Friday offers will be revealed.

Stories of Bitcoin Black Friday’s past

In 2012 Bitcoin Black Friday saw 300 merchants; 2013 doubled that with 600; but, in 2014, Holmquist says that the event is aiming for a staggering 6,000 merchants.

The official announcement on the BitcoinTalk forums includes a few of the merchants who will be participating this year. And, for those interested, there have been giveaways each Friday this November leading up to Black Friday. The next giveaway is November 21 and simply signing up on the mailing list (from the website) puts you into the raffle.

Two merchants from 2013’s Bitcoin Black Friday stand out: Namecheap and Bee’s Brothers.

Namecheap is a domain registration, hosting, and management service in operation since 2001 that has been accepting bitcoins as payment since March 2013. The domain registrar participated in Bitcoin Black Friday 2013 as one of the 600 merchants and offered deals on domains to buyers who used bitcoin.

Theodore Worcester, Head of Product at Namecheap, told SiliconAngle that the company sees a surprisingly high number of users paying for services with bitcoins. The team at Namecheap support Bitcoin Black Friday and “think that it’s a really important event to raise awareness around the retailers that embrace and support bitcoin.”

Bee’s Brothers is an interesting family owned and operated honey business out of Cache Valley, Utah and a bitcoin success story. The company has participated in Bitcoin Black Friday 2012 and 2013 and saw a huge influx of orders from both.

To get their story, SiliconAngle contacted the family and Craig Huntzinger, owner and all-around bee expert, had his 16-year-old son Nathan Huntzinger explain:

The family business caught whiff of the Bitcoin phenomenon in 2011 but did not join in until about 2012, when a web-presence could be built. Upon noticing bitcoin and its implications, Craig had argued for getting on board and this led to accepting bitcoin and participating in Bitcoin Black Friday.

“The first two years the bitcoin sales really helped our business grow from being a one night a week job for a couple of us, into all of our family working almost every night,” Nathan Huntzinger, told SiliconAngle. ”Bitcoin sales were about 50% of our business.  The other 50% was going to our local Farmer’s Market every week, and a couple of stores that wholesale our products.”

In fact, according to Nathan, Bitcoin Black Friday 2013 produced a significant number of orders for the business. This, coupled with a feature in Sunset Magazine’s “Best of the West,” brought on what he describes as a “tidal wave of orders.”

2014 has slowed down somewhat on bitcoin orders for the small business, most likely do to the proliferation of bitcoin businesses in general, but the family still look forward to Bitcoin Black Friday being a big event for them.

According to Nathan, he and his younger brothers have prepared for the potential crush of orders from Bitcoin Black Friday and can keep up with any amount of work that may come in. Barring running out of stock on honey, Bee’s Brothers will keep the nectar of the gods flowing.

Where to get bitcoins

As the years have passed more and more ways of easily getting bitcoins have become available. Amid them, the online wallet services Coinbase and newly minted Circle make the easiest method for getting bitcoins for newcomers.

For more advanced users, or those who want to keep their own personal wallet, LocalBitcoins.com is a fair place to find someone locally who will trade bitcoins for cash.

For even more extensive list of options, see the Bitcoin Wiki.