Black Friday
 

So, Black Friday is coming! Are you already writing your GAME PLAN for the stores you're going to hit up throughout the day? Or does the idea of waking up at 3 am and rushing to the stores only to fight with thousands of shoppers for the same deals sound absolutely STUPID to you?

I'm planning to do a lot of Xmas shopping - I'm hoping to find some good deals in video games, because there're a few gamers on my gift list. I might hit stores like Fry's and Best Buy if I see anything interesting in the ads. What (if anything) are you planning to do on that day?

I got roped into working a day at the supermarket, which won't be too busy, though I'm considering popping in somewhere early to snatch up some deals. Both CompUSA and Best Buy have deals going for a 500GB hard drive for $99. Yes PLEASE

I'll be working at KB Toys through that whole weekend starting Thursday. Goddamn, it's gonna be the longest weekend of my life.

I plan on walking around State Street in Chicago just to revel in America's proudest tradition: materialism.

I have the coupons ad fliers ready to go. I have a shopping list already.

I love Black Friday. But I hate it at the same time.

I have a whole road trip to the US planned out. First I'm going to...

ya, no. I unfortunately have to wait until Boxing Day for my crazy discount shopping. :(

Is Black Friday the same as Canada's Boxing Day? They sound almost identical, though the timing for Black Friday seems to make waaaay more sense since Christmas is in the next month. Boxing Day is the day after Christmas, and retailers slash prices on overstock and deal with gift exchanges for about a week... o_O

Here, it's more like a way to put businesses in the black for the end of the year. Thus "black" Friday. It boosts sales for the retailers. Some of the deals aren't that great on Black Friday - you really have to shop the fliers and shit before hand. A lot of things are advertised at a BF price, but they're really not a lot cheaper. Hunt for deals, know you're stores, and have a list of what you're getting.

We have a similar thing to Boxing Day on the day after Christmas, though.

Insofar, most of the ads I've noticed aren't that great. They were better a couple years back. Now, it seems like Black Friday is just regular weekday sales, but published on Friday instead of Sunday. For example, the leaked Best Buy Black Friday ads are nothing but average. Most of their prices are around interweb price, which isn't saying too much.

I'm not a huge electronic gift buyer, so I'll be hitting up Barnes and Noble to see if they have anything worthwhile. Most likely not, so I'll be going to Amazon.com

I did not see that. =o Guess I'm headed to Best Buy.


Oh, god, yes - last year, I made it to Best Buy at about 9 am, and it was a madhouse even then. This year, I'm hoping to avoid some of the crazier crowds by going earlier.

For those of you who don't think there are too many deals this year, I recommend checking out Slickdeal's BF Forum. I use this site almost daily, and their BF forum is to die for. <3

Are you serious? The worst crowd is right when the store opens...


I worked at a Wal-Mart on a black Friday once. I think there were a few riots in the parking lot for spots, one or two when they ran out of the cheap electronics crap, and one near Housewares over a vacuum cleaner.

I'll never forget the part of the day when I walked up to work from the parking lot. Mind you, I parked a good 2 minute walk from the store (the parking lot was big btw). As I'm close to the store some lady does one of those spot dash things and steals a spot from someone else. The other person is rightfully pissed and says something like "fuck you buddy, where's your fucking Christmas spirit?" and the lady goes "fuck off, Merry Christmas you piece of shit." It was pretty sad to be honest. It really ruined the holiday for me that year. I kept seeing their faces filled with an utmost hatred and loathing. I'm willing to bet that if they weren't so obsessed with getting their deals, they would have killed each other.
Since then I vowed never to set foot inside of a retail store on Black Friday. The entire day was traumatic for me; and fuck you if you say you'd laugh at any of it. If you were there you wouldn't have. (unless you're a piece of shit anyway, and in that case please go kill yourself)

I kinda agree with Matt on this. Both my mom and my sister have side jobs at the Mall, so if we ever want to do anything during Thanksgiving Break when I'm home, its fucked up because they have to work.

I never bother with the stores on Black Friday. I honestly hate shopping any time around the holidays... from mid-November to the end of January, everywhere is a fucking clusterfuck. It makes a normally relaxing trip to the literature section of Borders a project. People are more asshole-ish than ever, and they dont give a shit, and that makes the more pleasant people grumpy.

I just got one the other day for $110 shipped to my door from Newegg. Ignoring the cost of gas to get to Best Buy or CompUSA, it's worth my $10 not to have to stand in line for those hours.

See for instance: Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar SE WD5000AAJS 500GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

$99.99 shipped, and no need to leave your house on Friday!

Good luck.

I would not be suprised that an internal HDD of that space would cost that little.

I believe that they were talking about the external one which I am planning on getting (best deal I see so far I guess).

Fair enough. That makes the price a bit more bearable, but when I can get a 500GB drive for $99 and an enclosure [that's of better quality than the ones WD/Maxtor use] for <$20, it's still not worth it to me. To each their own I suppose.

I agree with you 100% Temari and I also do agree with everything matt has said as well. I avoid christmas shopping at all costs during the holidays and I don't really care if I save a little bit of money in the process or not. I'm grateful that my fiance and I managed to get the majority of our christmas shopping done during october and we finally finished the last bit of our christmas gifts within the last few days. That way we don't have to deal with the crowds or the fuckiness pettiness and rudeness of a lot of people during the holiday season.

I've seen so many people get torn down emotionally by rude customers because they can't get their own way and they expect that even though it is during the holidays the world should revolve around them and their needs. I had a guy at EB games get told off brutally by the middle aged woman because they didn't have any Wii's. This woman was going on with shit saying that she had promised her child that santa would get him a Wii, and that he was the one that ruined her family's christmas. Her son is going to dissappointed and sad all because of him. She was literally putting him through the worse guilt trip ever.

We sometimes do need to go to mall if we need to pick up the scatter thing or two, but thats about it. I avoid trying to buy anything during the holiday season. I might go to the mall to meet up with a few friends because guranteed you spend a day at the mall, you tend to some of the worse customers imagineable.

Even though we don't have Black Friday up here in Canada, I don't plan on going to do any shopping for the rest of the holiday and I sure as hell ain't going to the mall on Boxing Day.

Aside from parking I can't recall any horrible experiences with Black Friday/holiday shopping. If anything, Black Friday can be kind of nice if you don't go for the morning deals since stores tend to be cleared out by the afternoon. Last BF I walked into a Toys R Us around noon to find a shipment of Wiis that had just been unloaded.

I'd find it pretty difficult to keep from laughing if a customer ever yelled that at me. I suppose it depends on how emotional an employee is, but I find angry customers amusing when they have no case at all. They're only a pain when they have a real point, but the mistake was made by one of my coworkers and I have no real way of fixing it for them (sadly this is typically the case).

I'd like to do some shopping on Black Friday (electronics stuff for the holidays), but I'm more than likely going to end up working since I'm scheduled to work. I'm trying to get it off, but I don't think things are looking too good.

That said, as an unfortunate sap working in retail, I hate you people.

Last year is the one and only time I ever have and ever will experience the insanity that is Black Friday.

We were looking to get some new computers at either Best Buy or Circuit City. We went out the night before just to check things out. It was around 7:00 PM I guess. It seemed nobody was out. Then we drove up to Best Buy and to our complete shock saw that people were already lining up! There were maybe 30 people literally camped out for the next morning.

Some had little pop tents. Others were just sitting in chairs wrapped in blankets. Some had DVD players. At least one guy had a guitar.

But we only witnessed the real madness when we went back the next morning at about 5. We didn't even get in. The line outside the building was enormous. It wrapped around the building, double-backed and zig-zagged through the parking lot on one side. There were cop cars and police tape in one area.

And madder still, people were still getting in line even knowing they were going to have to wait several hours before even getting in the building! The campers from the previous night were the smart ones (in a way).

Then we headed to Circuit City. No lines outside the building. We thought we might have a shot. We go in and find the place packed wall to wall. The checkout lines were stretching through the aisles.

After observing in awe for a few minutes we headed to Lowe's (the one thing we did buy we wound up taking back). There was a decent line waiting outside just before it opened. It was almost hilarious seeing how everyone was running around grabbing all the same stuff from the same ad.

I still can't believe how zombie-like everyone was. It's like they were all determined to get SOMETHING. It didn't matter what. It didn't matter if they needed or even wanted it. But they had to get SOMETHING and were willing to wait in line for hours to get it. I doubt anyone but the campers actually got what they wanted.

That is a morning I will never forget.

I work in a wal-mart, and everyone that is on the payroll MUST work on BF no matter what.

One year, an associate was in an auto accident, and could not make it to work. That person was fired the next day.

So pretty much it comes down to everyone is insane on that day for no reason at all. I have to work that day...at 5 in the morning...when everything goes on sale.


I've requested a flak jacket.

I don't ever want to work in retail.

Sass, that site is pretty badass - thanks for the link

Normally i sleep in on black friday, cause there's rarely anything i want to buy. But this year i'm trying to put together a home theater system, so i may have to brave the chaos, with my seasoned mother as guide.

I'll just be sure to bring a sack full of Godiva chocolates to distract sales-crazed old ladies.

I'm from the suburbs where it's really not that bad on black Friday. Maybe you have to walk from the back of the parking lot and the lines were a little long, but it wasn't so bad. Now that I'm living in LA I can't even imagine how bad it's going to be. There's a few things I want to buy for a new computer that would save me about $60 total, but I really don't know if it's worth all the frustration.

I'm working at Panera Bread on Black Friday. Normally, that wouldn't be too bad (especially since I'm not opening), except that said Panera is at the busiest mall in the bloody state. On the other hand, the company did realize that carrot > stick, so they're giving out $100bux bonuses to everyone who works that day and, uh, today. You wouldn't think that the Monday before Thanksgiving would be busy, but what do I know.

I'm sure as HELL not looking forward to finding a parking spot, though. Might be a good time to drag out ye olde Vino 125.

I don't really need anything, so I'm not going out on Black Friday unless some shop offers up a killer deal on some better PC speakers or maybe games/CD's.

I am never going out on Black Friday. Never have, never will. It's just not worth the hassle.

Comp USA has some early bird specials on Thursday night from something like 8-11 PM, how bad do you think it would be during that time?

I remember opening the bagel shop where I used to work around 5am on Black Friday.

There were literally riots and violent soccer mom's trying to get into Walmart. They broke the windows, demanding their cheap vacuums and DVDs.

It's great to be an American.

Believe it or not, I miss it. Over here, there is no Black Friday. I have to explain the concept of it. Granted, I might miss it because I miss holidays that are associated with it (Thanksgiving and Christmas) which aren't really celebrated.

I guess that's because I am the type of person who LOVES to go out, find the good deals on holidays, and let people know. The last few years though (save for getting a few music CD's) the deals haven't been so great. Also, more and more are going online (although it is ridculiously impossible to take advantage of some like the Circuit City laptop deal for 300 that sold out in 10 minutes).

I would still do it, but not expect to really find anyway. Game-wise, I really have seen NO good deals anymore.

I'll be working on black friday so I cant do anything. I wasnt really going to go out anyway. I was originally planning to, but then after seeing the deals available I was unimpressed. Last years deals were a lot better. Nothing really exciting this year.

New computer, digital picture frame, and car cd player from Circuit City, a portable dvd player from Wal-Mart, and a 150 piece tool set from Pep Boys. The rest of my time I'll be spending at JC Pennys. I need a new outfit with some boots for the Christmas party they'll be having at work.

Hopefully everything will go as planned.

I'll be getting in on some of the Black Friday madness. I've done it on some years, including last year. This year two big items I'll be targeting are a laptop since an old one died a few weeks ago and a ubernormous HDTV (probably DLP to rep my company and all) since the Black Friday discounts are way better than any available employee discount. And as usual, I'll be grabbing any other cheap hard drives and various devices that I find.

Other than computer stuffs and electronics, I also hit up some clothing and shoes stores/outlets. My wardrobe tends to get some major updates after this weekend of the year. I also always come out with at least another pair of shoes. Plus it's a great start for Christmas shopping.

But if there's complete mission failure, there's always Cyber Monday to look forward to.

I can't stand large crowds. They literally make me go batshit insane. My floormates thought I had some sort of nervous breakdown because I left the DC (dining commons) abruptly after a huge Christmas dinner and didn't leave my room for a couple days, and barely talked. It seriously screws with my head. I hate people, and I'll do anything to avoid situations like Black Friday.

It's worth paying an extra $30-$40 for an item on the off chance that I need it if I don't have to deal with Black Friday nonsense.

There's still decent deals in the afternoon after everyone has cleared out. Maybe not quite as good as it would be otherwise, but at least it isn't insane.

For those who work retail on Black Friday, or for those who have gone a few times, what do people tend to flock to? I've never participated in the maddness, but i'm trying to get an hdtv and am thinking the dealz maybe worth the hassle. I'm hoping since i'm looking for a large, expensive item, and essentially ignoring the small, cheaper stuff that the crowds won't be as much of an issue. Unless a few hundred other people have the same idea.

Also, Naz, i haven't heard about Cyber Monday - i can well enough imagine what it is but i figured you generally get good deals online anyways...

I usually don't shop on Black Friday, but this year is different. We're planning on getting an HDTV (at last), and since I'm the only one willing, I'll be dropped off Thursday night at whatever place has the best deal on one. Aside from that, I'll just have to see in tomorrow or Thursday's ads what kind of deals are going on, be it in games or any sort of electronics. I also might stop by Kohl's sometime on Friday and see if I can get some cheap clothes.

I'm still undecided on whether or not I'm doing it this year. There are quite a few things I want to get (mainly for myself), but I'm wondering if the hassle is honestly worth it. Last year I waited in line for two hours at Circuit City just to get three things (two of which were actually on sale, but I've actually seen cheaper since then), which was ridiculous. There are definitely more things I want to get this year, but who knows if it'll even be worth it (despite going pretty early last year I still didn't get everything I wanted).

I currently work at Mervyn's in Morgan Hill, CA, and have to be up at 2AM to get to work by 3AM cause we open at 4. Sigh, I'm gonna hate that friday, but at least we get time and a half. Anywhoo, if anyone wants any discounts, just get your stuff rung up at the shoes department and mention gamingforce. I'll give yall' a 15% bonus off for no reason just because its so busy that my bosses won't notice. Plus, if you buy one of our jackets (I think its the fleece one), you'll get two extra absolutely FREE. Plus, I think I'm still gonna head over to the new target after my shift, just to see if anything is left. Too bad Xboxs aren't experienceing too much of a price reduction on this day.

Lawl-Mart has gotten pretty shitty with their policies now. No one can EVER have a full weekend off. You either work Saturday or you work Sunday. They put in a few months back that dress code for EVERYONE. Ugh. I hope to god I never work there again.

As to Black Friday, it's just too crazy. One year my dad actually thought he was going to do some Christmas shopping on BF. I laughed. To get shit done you have to beat the soccer moms and all those deal grabbers who are waiting in their cars at like 4 am in the parking lot, waiting for employees to come outside and unlock the doors. Then you have to run and HOPE you can get something popular before everyone else (and then if it's something huge like a Wii, expect offers for it all throughout your shopping, while keeping an eye on your buggy.)

I don't know why people go so apeshit on BF (other than the obvious, gotta have it now/last minute shopping crap). I salute all you in retail. I don't want to deal with that ever again. :|

The past two years I've gone to my local Best Buy's BF sales. The first year it was great, last year was chaos, so hopefully they'll have gotten their act together this year. It's a lot of fun since I go with a group of friends and we have a great time while waiting in line either via DS multiplayer games, card games, or board games (Risk and Monopoly work great).

This year there's really nothing in the ad that's catching my eye (Except a $100 19" LCD monitor. Yes please!), so I'm just going for the fun of it. It's something that I feel I can handle once every 365.25 days. That and going to bed after I get home feels great.

PS3
 

I'm planning to buy a PS3. Are there any good online deals on Black Friday?
Also, what is recommended? 40GB or 60GB...?

Amazon.com had the customer vote Thanksgiving deal, but I was too late :(

Six hours to go. I'd like to wish everyone the best of luck on getting what they want. This is my first BF shopping experience so I hope everything turns out all right. Have fun everyone!

Remember, last year had the launch of the PS3, and people were buying them on Black Friday just to sell them on ebay....

I've been to an early morning Black Friday sale just once--it was in wal-Mart, and I bought one item.

My mom has said this to me this year:

"We're checking out Wal-Mart's parking lot. If it's full, we're going somewhere else...."

I love my mom. :)

I went to CompUSA earlier tonight to try and get their earlybird specials that were being held on Thursday night from 9:00-Midnight. I got there at 10:00. They were fucking closed. :mad:

I went to radio shack to get my $99 brown Zune. They had been open for 5 minutes (I'm assuming because the ad said they opened at 6am.) Out of stock. So was newegg. Had to buy it from Dell online. Came out cheaper that way anyways, but I still kinda wanted it today.

The wife and I bought some clothes at my mom's JCPenney store before that, also. But no more shopping for me.

I saw some of the most crunk shit of my life today at Best Buy

Best Buy had this like $299 laptop -- and my location only had one. Two 40-year old women got into a slapping match over the only reserve ticket for one and ended up tearing the thing in half, so the staff had to go back in and print up another one and some smelly redneck ended up getting -- he proceeded to sell it to someone else in the crowd for 250 bucks.

People are so fucking stupid.

I was thinking about getting up this morning and going to check it out [since i went last year for the PSP deal at wal-mart, thanks GFF for letting me know about that :D], But after reading Night Phoenix's post...i'm kinda glad I didn't.

Overall, today was a success. It started off badly. I got to Circuit City at 4 am and there were already 300 people standing in line some of which had been there since 7 pm yesterday. By the time I finally got into the store all of the computers were sold out as well as the digital picture frame. I was pissed after that so I thought let me go see if they have my portable dvd player at Wal-Mart but guess what, I was talking to one of the employees and he told me that when they opened there was more than 600 people waiting so by the time I got there all the good electronics was again (you guessed it) sold out. I was extremely dissappointed and frustrated that I had gone out so early all for nothing. I didn't even go to sleep the day before so I was irate after all this.

After that, I went to JC Penny and took out my frustration there. I spent about $250 on clothes and shoes. I also got a 119 piece auto repair set for my car from Sears. After finally buying something I calmed down and was actually happy. I was still dissappointed that I couldn't get my new computer so I went home and immediately went online to see if there were any BF deals on computers. Guess what, I searched hours and hours and finally found the computer that I wanted. Even better was that it was better than the one I was originally looking for. A HP Pavilion a6223w Desktop PC w/ AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ with a DUAL CORE 2.60 Ghz 3072MB DDR2, 500GB HDD, and VISTA H.P. for $525.

It might not be the greatest deal but I can't wait to get it and get rid of my crappy Intel Celeron D machine. Don't ever get a Celeron processor b/c it sucks. All in all, I am extremely happy now and this is what I have learned from my first BF experience, go ahead and shop for clothes b/c they are never out of stock and get your electronics online.

Will I do it again next year? Yeah but just to get clothes and other apparell.

Scored a MX Revo for $7AR and Logitech webcam for -$30AR. Besides that, this year's black friday has been made of fail.

Bought a Zune a week ago for $199 only to find out about the $79 dollar deal at Toys-R-Us today. Shit was gay, and I figured it wasn't worth the fight, so I just sucked it up. It's only another one hundred bucks, so blah.

I stayed in my house, locked the doors, closed the proverbial shutters, rolled myself into a ball and covered my ears and my eyes hoping for the worst... Looks like everyone pulled through alright.

Well, I went to Office Depot at around 5 pm. Not 5 am, but 5 pm. There was like no one there. I think I spent a total of 15 minutes total inside the store. I got myself a 500 gig external hard drive for $100.