Black Friday: Would you/Have you ever gone to one of these sales?

[Decade]

So, Black Friday is this week, and all the deals are starting to pop up (they have been anyway if you check www.blackfriday.info to see whats been up for a few weeks already), but every year I hear/read/see stories about people who stuck it out for Black Friday deals and certain stores (usually Wal-Mart) and literally go animalistic for these crazy deals

For a decent example, check out the Az-Classic editorial "Christmas Shopping" (http://www.outpostnine.com/editorials/shopping.html). Or the viral "Black Friday at Wal-mart" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVvEChXulSs)



Anyone ever try to actually go to one of these sales? Anyone planning to actually tough it out and try one this year?



I think I got it pretty damn easy in comparison to others who've done it before as the only deals I care about can be redeemed online that day, but wow. This shits scary!

[Shishio]

No, but I'm not in the US.

I love to go shopping on Boxing Day, though.

[Roxie]

I've been. It was crowded, but not crazy.

[4letterwords]

I work at the Disney Store and bath and body works, both... theyre some of the craziest stores for christmas gifts. I have to work 18 hours between the two stores on black friday and its crazy. Last year the disney store alone on that one day did 132,000$... at the one store. The average for one day is usually between 2-4000 so you can see how crazy that is. Disney is doing 20% off of the entire store for 5 hours and B&BW is doing 15% off and a free gift. I guess last year at the disney store one person had to be taken to a hospital after getting in a fight with another woman after a jungle book toy. Whoa k. I'm prepared but scared as hell. We have to go through a week of extra training to prepare for the season. Its absolutely crazy.

[Plekto]

Online shopping plus Black Friday... excellent combination without the lines or insanity.

:)

[Mastiker]

Black Friday is racist.

But seriously, no. I don't go shopping on Black Friday because I enjoy what is left of my sanity.

[MNJetter]

I worked at a home center for 4 years in college, and managed to get through the whole thing without once working on that day. I've heard stories, though. Fights breaking out, lines at the cash register that are a dozen people long and don't let up all day, people taking advantage of the chaos and walking out in plain sight with unpaid merchandise......crazy stuff.

[blank slate]

I have only done it once. It was last year when my parents bought a TV. Of course it helped that we were able to buy the tv online two days prior to Black Friday, and then go pick it up at the store the day of the sale. We went in at like 10AM and didn't have to deal with all of the crap, except having to wait in a line for a while.

[Shuft]

I've been on both sides of the counter for black Friday. If you are planning on taking advantage of a sale, see if they will price match themselves. For example, buy the product you want at it's normal price, then walk in with your receipt on black Friday after the lines have calmed down and get a refund for the difference.

This black friday I am scheduled from 4:30 - 22:00, and I'll probably be staying after to clean up.

[bluestars87]

Working on Black Friday blows. Try to avoid working retail if you can.

[Roxie]

I've never worked in retail...but in supermarkets, the BEST sales are on New Years Day. Especially if you're into baking. Very few ppl in the store and incredible price reductions

[stsparky]

Come to the Apple store - it's our only sale day of the year.

[belladonna]

i loved waiting in line at target at 3AM last year... it was fun, then going to best buy and walmart...so fun

[erbiumfiber]

I'm going to the U.S. to visit my father over Thanksgiving weekend. I need SO MUCH STUFF. From clothes to toiletries, I must shop. That whole weekend will suck so, yeah. The main store by his assisted living facility is Target and then there's a mall. Both will be insanely crowded. The mall had a shooting last year or the year before so I'm really psyched to go. :gloomy:

[h2orowe]

Too bad I never have any money for shopping.

[Your Mom]

My friend convinced me to go "blitzing" with her last year.
We got to the first store at 2 a.m.
I stood in line at Target for a good hour and a half, at least.
Never.
Again.

[Kaji]

My girlfriend loves it, I personally get annoyed enough trying to find parking on a regular weekend day as it is without both halves of San Jose going out to shop at once. I plan to kick back with some hot chocolate and a movie and just generally be lazy. hehehe...

[Black fist]

I'm scared of black friday just like I'm scared of the day before christmas at the mall. Next time I go to the mall 24 hours before christmas I'm bringing a taser, pepper spray, and a blunt object to bash people heads in.

[Kleshya]

I have worked Black Friday several times before in retail, and swore I never would go, but now it looks like my MIL is really wanting me to go...

[Kyletherealninja]

I work at a grocery story, and the day before Thanksgiving is the most horrible day of the year. Black Wednesday, if you will. I think I'm gonna have to work it this year, but since I need some extra cash, I don't mind.

I always do shopping online, so I've never had to brave the crowds on Black Friday.

[Beowulf]

Hell no. This is why man invented the internet.

[ellie]

Why yes, I have been! And it was glorious and terrible at the same time.

My family typically goes to Dallas for Thanksgiving, where my grandparents live, as well as 3 sets of aunts&uncles and a total of 16 cousins. And oftentimes, other out of state cousins and family members go there as well, so there ends up being a tonnn of relatives around, and what better way to bond with family than to go shopping?

A few years ago, all the moms got us kids up at 4am so we could go wait outside the mall when it opened, and we were standing in the cold (yes, it gets cold in Dallas) for an hour before we finally got to go inside. The first 100 people in line got $10 gift cards. . .I wish it had been a larger amount of money, but at least getting paid to be awake that early was kinda nice.

We went to Dallas last weekend, so we're not going to the traditional family event this year, just a small close family thang at my parent's house, but I bet my sisters will still want to go shopping the day after!

[SlickWilly440]

^
Which mall? Macy's?

[ellie]

Hmm I'm not sure. . .it was a mall that had a Kohl's in it. . .(which is weird to me because I usually see Kohl's in strip malls, not big inside malls.) What's a big mall in Carrollton or Arlington? It was the big mall in or near one of those two places.

[Radiance]

I have to say, i've done the shopping on black friday, but generally i'm pretty casual about it and would rather catch the better sales at other times that people miss. I will admit however, I got the walmart pre-black friday HD-DVD player for $98 ($105.78 with tax) but they just started selling them at 8am and had a lot of them in stock. So thats my big gift for this year, got it earlier this month.

As far as the working retail on black friday.... yeah, ever year i've worked retail, i've called in sick on that day. >:3 Almost got me fired twice, but i'm a hard worker the rest of the year when everyone else is like "this job sucks".

[Decade]

Is HD-DVD/Blu Ray really worth it? I mean I personally dont see a difference, but if the quality is really that much better, i'd hop on the next hd-dvd player under 100

[stsparky]

Is HD-DVD/Blu Ray really worth it? I mean I personally dont see a difference, but if the quality is really that much better, i'd hop on the next hd-dvd player under 100
Not yet - up converting HD DVD players with HDMI ports are the win.

[riona]

I've been shopping on black friday every year since I was old enough to walk, literally. It's definitely my favorite shopping day of the year. I LOVE getting up reeeally early (sometimes I don't even go to bed), going to the mall by my house, and just being in the crazy mess of people. My mother does all of her major Christmas shopping that day. I'm selfish and buy for myself :P

But I'm definitely keeping it a tradition to go every year.

[Digital Masta]

Now they are coming out with DVD/HD-DVD combo packs. I'm not sure how much they cost but I'm assuming the general idea is to make it so that you buy both and when you finally get your HD DVD you don't have to buy your movie again in HD

[Chris]

I was thinking of heading up to Wichita on that day. maybe.

I'm not working, thank God. Lowe's would scare me, but thank God I'm not in hardware, just paint.

[Azrael]

As I understand it, Blu-Ray is WAY outselling HD-DVD, and its only a matter of time before Blu-Ray becomes the standard.

If you have a HDTV, as well as the proper cables and what not, yes, the picture is amazing. If you don't have the nice TV to go with it...probably not worth it.

[Plekto]

The main push is coming from the fact that Blockbuster and Warehous, the top two national rental chains went with Blu-Ray.

Blu-Ray is a lot like the difference between DVD-R and DVD+R. +R is superior from a technological and duribility standpoint so it's eventually taken over(though players will handle both)

They make dual format players, but Blu-Ray has a larger capacity and requires no major reprogramming - it's basically a normal DVD with a much higher data density. AND, you can't really find HD-DVD burners for your PC, but you can find Blu-Ray drives(One advantage of IBM's backing it - they still hold a lot of weight in the computer industry)

Yeah - about the quality... done right, it's astounding(1080p). Anything else is hardly any better than the HD you get off the air or cable. And that of course means a good $2500-$3000 minimum for a good setup. Ouch - I dont have that kind of money and probably won't for a long, long time.

[Radiance]

Uh, I beg to differ. You most certainly can find an HD-DVD player for your PC. Microsoft makes it, and while it is marketed for the Xbox360, it will most certainly work for your PC with minimum modifications.

As far as which is going to win, it doesn't really matter to me. I got the HD-DVD player cause it was $100, which is a fantastic deal any way you look at it.

[akitaka]

My sis wants a new laptop and lives in canada.

For her, I'll be marching in to 3 different stores and attempt to nab a 14-inch notebook for hopefully less than $500 (lowest I've seen without seasonal deals), order some memory at newegg for an extra $20, and get her a mean photoshopping machine ready. She's paying for it, but will need my sis and I to lend her a hand :-(

I'm also working from 7am to 5pm on the sales floor, and baked a goddamn cake for the potluck since we're not getting breaks.

No comfort sleep for me, tonight :-(

[jindojim]

I'm going to line up at Best Buy @ 1am to try to get an LCD TV for my apartment. Wish me luck :D

[Roxie]

awww, aki, aren't you sweet

I want an xbox360, so I can play rock band.

[mawande]

What about these new CDs? My mother bought me a CD I wanted, and it turned out I couldn't play it, because it was a Super Audio CD. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Audio_CD Just for those who don't know. I can't play it on anything I own.

Wish I could play it on my walkman. Are there any walkman's that can play these things yet?

[SlickWilly440]

So Yeah Fry's Electronics opened up at 5 a.m. this morning, so I decided to get there around 4:50 and wait in line for 10 minutes. Guess what, the line into the store went all the way around to the back of the building.

However I was aiming to get 2 Crucial brand 1 gb SO DIMM 677(33mhz) sticks of RAM (Laptop) for $24.99 - $20.00 mail in rebate, but it was one per customer. At Frys, to get any type of memory, laptop, etc, you have to ask a clerk to print out an item/receipt form in that departments section, which you then take to the cash register to pay and get the item.

To make a short story shorter, I had to get a form, go the register, get and pay for the item, walk out of the store, immediately pocket the item, then walk back into the store, and do the same process again.

I thought the second time I went to get the 2nd stick of RAM, they might be sold out, but they were. All and all the who process took about an hour.

So now I have 2 gb of RAM in my laptop instead of 1gb, and it's running a whole lot smoother.

[phenyl]

What about these new CDs? My mother bought me a CD I wanted, and it turned out I couldn't play it, because it was a Super Audio CD. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Audio_CD Just for those who don't know. I can't play it on anything I own.

Wish I could play it on my walkman. Are there any walkman's that can play these things yet?

Unfortunately not, SACD-Players are usually more "high-end" and stationary, the cheapest I have seen here are around 30000 yen.
http://search.kakaku.com/ksearch/search.aspx?query=sacd&search.x=0&search.y=0
SACDs are not very common. Nowadays the most new releases are in classical music.
It's not really worth it to buy a player for a single sacd though.

(Some SACDs are 'hybrid', which means that they can also be played in a regular cd-player. Unfortunately, yours doesn't seem to fit that description)

[jindojim]

Oh man...never again... I stood outside in near freezing temperatures for 4 hours to get a TV that I thought would be in limited stock. Turns out that Best Buy wasn't even giving out tickets for the TV, so I probably could have come at 4:50 AM, waited at the back of the line, and gotten it. The crazy thing was that at 1AM, there were still at least 100 people ahead of me in line. Moreover, I definitely remember driving by @ 4PM and seeing some people lined up already. I think they were more interested in trying to get a laptop though.

Anyway, I got my LCD TV for my apartment, so I'm thinking it was probably worth it in the end. I got to chat with a bunch of interesting people too, which definitely helped pass the time.

[Plekto]

My gripe is that CompUSA shut down its stores in most of the U.S., so the nearest one to me is over a hundred miles away.

They are running a buy one PC game get one free promotion today. That means $50 gets you The ORange Box and Unreal Tournament 3.

(sigh - both of which I want badly)

[Duke Luke of Juke]

Some lady rammed me in the ass with her cart. I didn't not like it.

[stsparky]

I have lost my voice - It made calling in sick hard.

Plekto? Just head for Fry's and have fun.

[Decade]

Some lady rammed me in the ass with her cart. I didn't not like it.
As opposed to getting rammed in the ass by a man with a cart? ;p


Honestly, none of the black friday deals really impressed me this year. Except for a deal I saw on amazon for the voting (which i'll NEVER get, mind you) for a 46" Samsung LCD 1080P tv they're selling for $720.

I can dream :gloomy:

[akitaka]

My gripe is that CompUSA shut down its stores in most of the U.S., so the nearest one to me is over a hundred miles away.

They are running a buy one PC game get one free promotion today. That means $50 gets you The ORange Box and Unreal Tournament 3.

(sigh - both of which I want badly)
Ok. Drove to two locations across town, and guess what? Both locations were shut-down. I called beforehand just in case, but put some faith in that they'd still be there.

Aside from the fact that my cake nearly fucked up, well, I was pissed. I beat the egg whites into a meringue so damn fast that I nearly broke the bowl. Never again will I ever holiday shop.

At least I got my gifts, though. And work wasn't that bad; just 9 straight hours of ringing merch like a machine. Okay, it sucked, but I'm not really complaining since there was plenty of food in the back room during my "restroom" breaks.

[ellie]

I did almost all of my Christmas shopping on Black Friday! Just a few more gifts to buy. I went with two of my sisters on Friday morning to the city; we left our house a little after 6am and shopped until 3pm. What an excellent day! And I even bought some really cute purple skinny jeans for myself.

[Jetsetlemming]

I went to a store in Virginia called MagicMart. It was mostly empty. I picked up a PS2 game and a shaving kit.
:P

[Decade]

I was watching AOTS today and apparently today was supposed to be something called "Cyber Monday" where it's apparently supposed to be the online version of Black Friday.

I totally missed this, but did anyone else know about this? And anyone know of a good deal that happened today?

[SlickWilly440]

Yeah I knew about this because the news was talking about how much the economy made on Black Friday, and then started talking about "Cyber Monday" and how people are going to be shopping at work, costing the U.S. 500 million dollars in lost labor in one day. Also they said make sure Decade doesn't find out about this and that most online shoppers will be males.

I didn't search around the net for any deals because in the end material goods will not bring true happiness.

[Decade]

Those fat bastards

[mochyan]

i got a laptop and two gigs of ram for it and a printer since i need to stop mooching off of my roomie.

picked up some headphones to replace my broken ones and a couple for my bros. dad picked up some navigation stuffs and a couple flash drives.

at least i don't need to lug around my old dell that weighs like 10 lbs. it was worth 3 hours of standing in line to get to the register. the actual shopping took 20 minutes max.

i took advantage of the weekend sales and got myself some more long sleeved shirts on sunday.

[SlickWilly440]

^
Good thing you got 2 gigs because Vista would have run like a snail on sleeping pills.

[Plekto]

I never understood the idea of running *windows* on a laptop, since you can't play mainstream games or high-end business apps on 95% of them.

So just install Linux or BSD Unix on the thing. Sudenly it'll do all of the same things, or damn close to it at 4-6 times the speed. With only a gig of ram, no less. And it's all free. (doubly so since you don't need to pay for firewall/AV and all the other BS Windows boxes require just to get running online)