Black Friday shopping: How did it go???

[ditchdj]

Ours went great!

It was me, my wife and one of her nephews. We went to the Walmart outside of town and got there at about quarter after 3 in the morning. It really wasn't packed and the lot was only half-full. The one in town was already packed. They already had their sale products out on skids for anyone to grab. There were separate lines for the laptops, TV's, and other big-ticket items. We just shopped for toys that were marked down and I got my 1TB external hard-drive to put all my songs and videos on. It was great. Everyone was polite and friendly.

We went to one of the closed registers to wait 'til 5am for it to open. No problems.

It was really good because after 4am it became ungodly overcrowded and about two-thirds of the sales items listed were already gone. My wife's nephew did go back to electronics once near the laptop line to see some woman bitching about "waiting in line for 3 fuckin' hours with no fuckin' laptop" while barging past people and nearly knocking him over. All that while we were safely tucked away at the register waiting for it to open.

Just made me glad we got there early, paid for our stuff at 5 and got the fuck out!
When we left there was NO parking spaces at all there.

Next year if we want a big LCD TV marked down we're getting there at midnight and staying all night.

[draggar]

I'm glad your trip went OK, I hate going out shopping now with all the insane people who decided to overdose on their EW pills this morning. My siter was very brave, she went out with hr 2.5 year old (he is very well behaved) and our 11 year old and 13/14 year old "cousins" (my cousin's daughters). They had a blast even if they didn't buy anything. I may go out this afternoon when things have calmed down a little, but most likely not (except the pharmacy to get some scripts).

Just watch out for a lot of the "big sale" items - many times it is not the same item as they normally sell. TVs might be a lower resolution, lapotps might be missing a couple (seemingly insignificant) or lower quality specifications (bus speed, screen resolution, smaller HDD etc..) to make you think you're getting a great deal when in realiity you might be getting an OK deal, some times even ripped off.

[Kara]

I was pretty disappointed this year. I hate doing the black friday thing anyway, but at least I can usually find something for me to make it worthwhile. Not this year though.

Again reminded of how much I hated working in stores this time of year. Yeah, you come into the store at 11am and act surprised that they sold out of whatever big item it was they had? And act even more surprised that there's no more in the back? I guess the one constant in life is that the majority of people are freaking retards.

On a related note:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/11/27/

[calulu]

I didn't do the 'Black Friday' thing per se because I'm done with my shopping and wrapping for the holiday. But I did run out of my addiction that is necessary for my daily living, caffeine free diet coke. Had to run to three different stores to swipe the last few bottles of it. Stores cleaned out and there was literally nothing to be had by 1pm in this area.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I do not do the Black Friday thing. I sleep in and lounge around in my PJs and drink hot chocolate and eat popcorn.

[Greenday]

I went to Sports Authority around 1pm today to get something for myself that I couldn't get at school. Not busy at all there. Pretty clean, no sign of large crowds. Couldn't find the hat I wanted though.

[NightWatch]

I refuse to go out on Black Friday, but I read in my local newspaper that there were several assaults, mainly on employees in my area this year. Apparently a couple of people were punched in the face, according to witnesses.

[Cat]

There's a jacket I really want to get myself and will probably order online, but do want to try it on again...which means I must face a store this weekend.


At least my holiday shopping is all done, I won't wrap til Dec 24 (by wrap, I mean reuse last years paper or throw in those store reusable bags, ha)

[blas]

My neighbor who works at Wal-Mart made it home ok today.

He said that everyone had to watch a video on crowd control.....and that there were cops at Wal-Mart all day

I wonder if there were cops at Sears or at the mall or Kohls or anywhere else that was supposed to be open super super early, although I can understand that since WalMart was where someone got killed last year, security was tighter there.

He said it was a "fucking zoo" but it did eventually calm down and by around the time he left it was back to any normal Friday at WalFart.

[McGoddess09]

Mine went alright. I was shipped off to a McD's in the middle of a huge shopping area. It was sooo busy. Then my grandma and I went to the mall and it was pretty crowded, but it was later on in the day, so it wasn't as bad. Then we went to wally world and it wasn't more crowded than normal.

I did get a sweater for $10 that was originally $40. I tried to go see if Supernatural Season 2 was on sale, but alas. It was not.

[Aethian]

I worked...

[Sliceanddice]

i went to wallmart at 2 am
we got the 32 inch tv dvds, games, a vaccuum and some pie dishes

the line for the tvs was long.
i got one of the first vaccuums.
my borther did a favor for a lady in my sisters tv line and grabbed a rockbandgame for her.
he said at 5 people basically collapesed on the PS3 and rock bands. but the people infront of him where short.
so he calmly reached over and grabbed on
i went to the toy aisle at 5:03 to grab a board game that apparently was really popular because i saw women grabbing it in stacks and i say pallets empty completely
i got the game it was the new moon board game my mom wanted it for a white elephant game.

then we went to staples. where i almost froze to death in our truck (it was low 40s at night and i was in a cold car with metel and a constant breeze on me) all they bought was a monitor but the wait there was rediculas. we got there at 5:40 they opened at 6 they then let 5 poeple at a time in to go wait in a nother line.

but hey we grabbed alot of good stuff

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

After work I bought a Christmas gift for my dad, a gift pack of 4 kinds of Swiss Miss hot cocoa, and a 3-pack of nuts we always get for the holidays.

The wait in line was about 40 minutes. I don't think it was quite that long last year.

The line to check out in electronics was shorter, but it Just. Didn't. Move. But this is to be expected when there's only two registers going back there, and the people running them are occasionally having to get stuff out of the cabinets for customers or tell customers where stuff is. There was a young lady and her boyfriend who joined the line at 6:00, and they were just leaving when I got off at a little past 7. I should know--I was the guy marking the end of that line.

[Giggle Goose]

After working a few Black Fridays in retail, I refuse to go. In fact, I try not to even leave the HOUSE due to all the insane people racing from one place to the next. *shudder*

I already bought a lot of gifts from Amazon.com....in bed!

[KellyHabersham]

It went well enough for me - had gone to the mall around 11 am, and while the line in Sephora was a bit longer than usual, the wait time wasn't too long. The only other thing worth noting is that there was NO place to sit in the food court at all (eventually sat by one of the fountains), and that just about every bench/chair around the mall was occupied, when they're usually not.