Most Americans Giving Black Friday The Cold Shoulder

Fail said:
The funny thing is, you can often get the best shopping deals of the year during the 7 days AFTER Christmas, than you can at any time before it as retailers clear out their inventory.
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This is spot on. Always wait until afterwards. :D
 
some ads are out, and this year's deals are really shitty.

after seeing those ads, half the people won't be lining up this time.
 
dr.kevin said:
some ads are out, and this year's deals are really shitty.

after seeing those ads, half the people won't be lining up this time.
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Looked at the Walmart one, didn't see a single item that would really get people worked up (IMO). Particularly the TV deals; HDTV prices have been so low lately I'd be shocked if it drove too many sales at this point.
 
Last one I went to was Walmart like 2006. Waited in line for hours to get one of their $299 laptops. Got it, brought it home, and it was broken. Took it back the next morning... and there were no more. Waste of time. Who needs that BS when you have daily internet deals anyway.
 
Steve said:
According to a new survey, most people aren't going to do any shopping on Black Friday. That seems about right, I personally avoid the BF hassles and do 99% of my shopping online using our commissioned buying links. Sure beats the hell out of standing in line for hours on end. ;)
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Not worth getting barged, trampled, crushed, or standing out in the cold for hours on end, for the sake of something no more marked down than it was the week before.
 
bloodhawke83 said:
I buy all the stuff i want during the year, when it comes to x-mas, no one can give me anything since i already have what i want.
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+1

Anything I can't buy for myself during the year is way to expensive to recieve as a christmas gift anyways :)
 
Fail said:
The funny thing is, you can often get the best shopping deals of the year during the 7 days AFTER Christmas, than you can at any time before it as retailers clear out their inventory.
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If I ever start a religion, all the holidays will take place 2 weeks after the other religions. :)
 
hardware_failure said:
I know what you mean about the excitement / mayhem but standing in line for a register for 1 hr+ totally kills it.
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If it were a normal day no i woudlnt have that, but i've met some of the most entertaining/interesting people waiting outside in the cold and/or in line checking out. I guess its because we make it a friend event. hang out in the parking lot chattin with folks, run around in the middle of mass hysteria, leave and go get breakfast, maybe hit up another store or two then go home laugh and play video games.
 
is black friday much like boxing day now, when things really arent on sale, and in some cases actually more then weeks before?
 
Never been to a Black Friday Extravaganza before. Only time I actually lined up for something was... wait for it.. The Nintendo Wii!

Yes, that's right. I stood in line for a Wii. Can you guess what happened to it in a few short months? :p
 
RailGunRiz said:
I don't know how those guys in retail handle that.. I'd have blown my brains out.
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When I worked at wal-mart I found it highly entertaining and enjoyable.....but this might of been because I was unhappy with my job normal days and this made things a lot different and fun. On top of that we did WAY less work cause it was more about moving stuff around getting it ready to sell instead of stocking shelves.
 
This just in....50% of statistics about humans are wrong 80% of the time.
 
All my shopping will be done online this year unless it is impossible to find the item.
 
Well fuck them then I go out every year to get Cheep SD cards and memorysticks and any other cheepo electronics to use as a throw away toy gadget.
 
The only thing I ever attempted was probably 4 years ago - Fry's had a black friday sale and I wanted to buy my girfriend a laptop. Being the nightowl I was, I figured I'd get the jump and show up at like 3am for their doorbuster sale.

Line was already around the building - i didn't even get out of my car.

I find it hilarious and sad that even in tough financial times instead of paying off bills or trying to keep a roof over their head people are still so wrapped up in black friday and cyber monday stuff (cyber monday I can approve much more of since there isn't any trampling, rudeness, or straight up crazy people)

If you camp out at walmart or ANYWHERE for 8 hours in the cold so you can save 50 dollars on a POS TV, then you are a loser plain and simple.
 
collegeboy69us said:
If you camp out at walmart or ANYWHERE for 8 hours in the cold so you can save 50 dollars on a POS TV, then you are a loser plain and simple.
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I agree with your statement, and what's so funny is that many of these "Black Friday" deals are actually limited stock, and some advertisements even say so (but a majority do not), they advertise that $300 TV that normally retails for $999 in the store, but they will intentionally only stock 5 of those TV's and leave the rest in the back to be sold after Black Friday at discounted prices, but not $300.

People are stupid.
 
collegeboy69us said:
If you camp out at walmart or ANYWHERE for 8 hours in the cold so you can save 50 dollars on a POS TV, then you are a loser plain and simple.
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While I agree, if you're making minimum wage which is what, $5.25, saving 50 bucks is 9.5 hours work...so you're actually getting somewhat of a "return" on your time there. Otherwise, yes you're insane. :p
 
I think it's like $7 now.

And it's the day after Thanksgiving/night of Thanksgiving. DOn't know about you, but I generally like to spend that time with my fam.
 
pgwalsh said:
No black friday deals for me. I'm packing a moving van that day.
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I did that last year. Moving sucks but I needed the job and it was 400 miles away and I had been commuting for 6 months, back and forth every weekend to be with my wife and two kids.

As for Black Friday, Retailers can kiss my ass. Their "deals" are generally no better than getting the same thing on Amazon or Newegg. Over-hyped, overblown and generally I notice only the less intelligent partaking. I remember as a child we would go shopping the day after thanksgiving and its was just known as "The Day After Thanksgiving Sale" Heck my mom had 5 kids and didn't want us all in the house for 4 days strait so it was off to the mall. Back then though, there was very little hype and stores opened at their regular time. I think these retailers making their employees work these crazy hours and ruin those peoples Thanksgiving holiday is shameful.
 
Frequenting Slickdeals, checking Newegg's shellshocker deals, and living decently close to Micro Center and Fry's satisfies my purchasing needs. Oh, and Amazon Prime.
 
Back in '05 and '06 I did the sit outside in the cold thing...I got some good deals too for a college student, a $200 westinghouse 22" TN LCD was a SCORE back then. The next year was the last I camped out for, I got a 46" Sharp Aquos 1080p LCD for $1k, and an Olevia 37" 720p for $500...the kicker was that the ABC warehouse I was at lost their credit card machines in the first 90 seconds or so, after that all transactions had to be processed with card imprints and copy paper. Talk about a mess.

I've learned since then. Last year I pre-purchased Target's $298 40" LCD a few days before the sale, just had to request the item number from their stock room. Went back home to have thanksgiving with the family. Watched the Lions game then entered a turkey coma. Friday around noon, I went in to a Target in my home town (in a different state than I pre-purchased) and requested the price adjustment. The lady at the customer service counter credited my card back almost $300 and I was out of there in under 2 minutes.
 
I cant never find thing I like in black friday retailer sales. Its almost all junks. And the all the good ones are limited to 5 or 10 per store.
 
Boxing day sale 2009 is what got me into internet shopping. I was goingto build a PC and a Seasonic M12D 850 went down from 340 dollars plus shipping to 120 dollars free shipping. Originally overpriced yes but still a great deal.
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
I shop all of the Black Friday deals online (if I find anything of interest). No need to deal with psychotic shopaholics or bad drivers.
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Only have to deal with websites that partially/totally meltdown under BF stress... ;) Starts making the physical store look better at that point.
 
Having been burned too often from black Fridays, I decided to just ignore it.

#1 Prices end up going sky high.
#2 The few items that are discounted, are usually gone within seconds.
#3 The gas you use to go to these stores won't be made up with low prices.
#4 Some stores have lines that require you to wait for hours to get in.

Just go online and buy your gifts. The traffic on the roads around xmas isn't worth it.
 
The only place I would go shipping on Black Friday is Fry's. They have about 100 cash registers that sit idle for most of the year but come alive during the Christmas rush. You go through that line in about 30 seconds.

But really I'm always on the lookout for good deals there, Black Friday is no different than any other sale IMO.
 
plunger said:
You couldn't pay me enough to go. I'd rather pay full price.
black-friday-electronics.bmp
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Could be a scene in a new Walking Dead episode.

Change the box in his hand to a pistol. Add some make up and cut out some of the lighting..... Black Friday special edition Walking Dead.
 
veterator said:
Could be a scene in a new Walking Dead episode.

Change the box in his hand to a pistol. Add some make up and cut out some of the lighting..... Black Friday special edition Walking Dead.
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id love to see that photoshop job anybody? Years of doing this working retail is probably why by 35 i've had 3 strokes. No more holiday stress for this guy.
 
collegeboy69us said:
If you camp out at walmart or ANYWHERE for 8 hours in the cold so you can save 50 dollars on a POS TV, then you are a loser plain and simple.
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I won't argue that. But for some people the time is worth the money. My walmart deal was a 3-4 hour wait to save $200, and I had the time. Luckily they let us wait in line inside the store because it was winter and raining outside. If they had made us camp outside in the cold and rain I wouldn't have done it. I was just so pissed off that the laptop was jacked and all that time wasted... I could have sent it in for warranty repair but said screw it. Oh and what happened when I went to return it? It started working normally for a few minutes just to make me look like an idiot in front of a employee who barely knew what a computer was.
 
Burticus said:
I won't argue that. But for some people the time is worth the money. My walmart deal was a 3-4 hour wait to save $200, and I had the time. Luckily they let us wait in line inside the store because it was winter and raining outside. If they had made us camp outside in the cold and rain I wouldn't have done it. I was just so pissed off that the laptop was jacked and all that time wasted... I could have sent it in for warranty repair but said screw it. Oh and what happened when I went to return it? It started working normally for a few minutes just to make me look like an idiot in front of a employee who barely knew what a computer was.
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I had that problem with a flickering backlight on my laptop. It would never happen when I brought it into the store. I finally just took a video of it acting up, brought it in, and the backlight died when the employee was trying to watch the video.


I only tried for one Black Friday deal. It was a $25 APC UPS at Staples. When I finally got in the store, I found the model, and it was still listed at $70. I asked an employee and he told me they were sold out of that model UPS. I pointed out that the model number on the stack I was looking at was the same as the one in the flyer, and he still stood by the "we're sold out of that model". I would have accepted any other answer (like: "we only had 3 to sell at that price" or something), but he had to insist that I was an idiot and unable to read model numbers.
 
plunger said:
You couldn't pay me enough to go. I'd rather pay full price.
black-friday-electronics.bmp
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Oh gawd, the memories ... worked in retail many years ago and somehow survived a few BF - and holiday seasons. *shudders* People turn into these "things" with less sense than usual (scary enough), short tempers, line shoving/jumping, people fighting over stuff and who was in line first, then get to the counter and don't even have wallet/money/card out, don't remember how much the whatever is so time out for price check (back when I was working it was leave the register and walk over to the aisle where the items were - more time wasted), no card swiping - it was the old clunky imprint thing. And add that it was usually a 16++ hour day with no breaks.

I will NEVER be seen anywhere near any retail store of any kind on BF (or really during December). Grocery shopping/state store for my once a year yee-haw is about it and that I won't even go near after, say, December 20 through the end of the year.

Anything I really want to get I will look online or just wait til January.

of course, only 1 person is actually getting a gift this year, I'm that broke - and that gift is already bought. Everyone else? cards - already bought last year after-holiday sale. Stamps already bought.

BF and the holidays just bring out the very worst in people.
 
The best thing abot Black Friday deals are they are mostly average deals, nothing amazing. They'll hype up the new price as a big drop in price compared to original price but leave out the fact that its been lower ever since product release.

I rarely see a GOOD deal on black friday, at least on something I consider worth while.
 
Majinhoju said:
fewer people getting trampled to death at walmart is probably a good thing.
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Have you been to walmart......the more walmart people trampled the better.

Went to fry's electronics 4 years ago got there at 3am waited in line till they opened and ending up buying nothing. Everything I wanted was gone before I got there and I was like only 50 people back in the line.

O look a 24" monitor for 60 bucks....Key word be A single 24" monitor for 60 bucks.
 
I do not think shopping online counts as giving black friday the cold shoulder you are still participating. So what massive amounts of shopping in general have moved online for all possible sectors. This says more about retailers in general than black friday.
 
I won't be stepping foot inside of a retail establishment anytime for the next month and a half.

I hate the christmas shopping season. All the stores get crowded and loud, filled with rude fricken people. It's not worth it.
 
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