Retail giant Wal-Mart has extended Cyber Monday into a week-long event beginning Saturday, and will offer deals until Dec. 5

The roughly 500 online deals will be available to shoppers all week, according to blogger Brevard Times.

And the week-long event is one of the newest trends as brick and mortar shops compete with the boom of online shopping options, according to VentureBeat.

"Online shopping started while turkeys were still in the oven, and yesterday was our second-highest online sales day ever – topped only by Cyber Monday last year," Wal-Mart said in a statement on Friday.

The change in aggressive online deal offers, and an earlier start, are the newest change to combat traditional Cyber Monday winners like Amazon.com and Etsy, which have been eating into sales of stores like Walmart, Best Buy, Costco and Radio Shack in the past, VentureBeat reported.

"We're doubling down on Cyber Monday this year, offering more than twice the number of deals compared to last year, and delivering it on a new web site that makes shopping easier and faster with free shipping on the season's hottest gifts all week long," Walmart.com President and CEO Fernando Madeira said, according to Design and Trend.

And with a more robust online shopping experience, Wal-Mart especially has an advantage for the craze of Thanksgiving weekend shopping. While online stores are limited to shipping availability and rush deliveries, shoppers at Wal-Mart and other similar stores have the additional option to pick up items at nearby stores after securing their purchase online.

It is no surprise, then, to have heard of Amazon opening its first ever physical store in New York City and other online stores moving to open physical locations.

 "It's fierce out there. You have to compete for traffic and conversion, on pricing and availability. There's multiple layers of competition. And you're dealing with one of the most informed consumers that we've had in years, if not ever," NASDAQ senior retail analyst Calvin Silva told VentureBeat.

Recent studies have shown that shoppers are increasingly agnostic about where they purchase their items from.