Black Friday : 2008
Posted on Nov 28, 2008 by john in Ranting
My Black Friday story actually starts on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. It was about 4pm when my wife and I pulled up to Best Buy. As we walked in I snapped this photo of the 2 tents that had already been set up out front by the guys waiting for the Black Friday sales rush. I don’t know what item they could have been so interested in that they would be willing to spend roughly 36 hours in front of Best Buy, but I hope it was worth it for them.
This morning the alarm was set for 4:00 am. I woke up (slowly), threw on some clothes, grabbed a sweatshirt and a jacket and was out the door by 4:15. Today was my first ever trip out in to the craziness that is Black Friday Shopping Madness and I was excited and ready to go.
My wife and sister headed off to Kohl’s while I went to get in line at Game Stop. When I got there, I noticed that the line for Target was really short. There were maybe 15 people in line. So I hopped in that line thinking they’d have the 1 item I was in search of (can’t talk exact item here) and as an added bonus, they opened at 6am rather than 7am. I figured if I wasn’t able to get what I wanted at Target, I could always hop in to the Game Stop line after the initial madness at Target.
By 5:15, the line hadn’t really grown as much as I expected. It maybe tripled in size. My wife showed up to hang out with me while my sister headed to the mall. The channel 13 news van arrived and the reporter stood right in front of us on the sidewalk, so there’s a very good chance we were on TV this morning while she talked about those “crazy people camped out at Target. Actually she was saying how there was a line, but the line wasn’t nearly as crazy as past years. Apparently this was the story all over.
Between 5:30 and 5:45 the line really grew. Then, with about 5 minutes left before the store opened, something really interesting happed. People started gathering in front of the doors in the parking lot (pictured below). It looked like they were going to make a mad rush for the doors when they opened. People in line started to get agitated. They brought out a couple security guards to try and block the people from coming in. But, as the doors opened and we started to file in, sure enough, here they came. The security guards kept back most of them, but one guy made a break for it and bust through the security guards and headed in to the store. By the time we got in and made it to the electronics section, we saw the cheater standing at the front of the line holding the item he had set out to get. Some other customers were getting in his face and calling him pathetic and whatnot. We just carried on with our mission. Unfortunately, even though we were one of the very first people to the electronics section, the item we were looking for was not available. There’s no way they had any in stock that morning because it would have been impossible for them all to have gone out the door before we got there. Whatever. We headed back out the front door and as we passed the registers out front, my wife noticed the coolest thing. The security guards were talking to Mr. Cheater who was trying to check out. They politely explained to him that since he cut in front of the line, they would not be accepting his purchases today and took his merchandise away from him. That made my day right there!
We got in line at Game Stop and began to wait. 10 minutes later I got a call from my sister at the mall. She says, “I’m at Game Stop in the mall. Is this the item you are looking for?” Well yes it is! She picked it up for us as we stepped out of line. The bulk of our Black Friday shopping is now complete and we can carry on with no worries!
We headed over to Best Buy as I wanted to pick up the Photoshop/Premier software bundle that was listed in their ad. I didn’t expect it would be one of the products flying off the shelves. We walked in the store, turned right and immediately saw two of the items that we had been waiting in line at Target to get. Since the item is limited edition, this surprised the heck out of me and really drove home the hit that retailers are taking this year. Any other year these would have been gone within 30 minutes of the store opening with no chance of finding one nearly 3 hours after they opened. We grabbed the software and headed to the line which snaked up and down every aisle to the back of the store. Even though it looked like a crazy line, we were out of there in 30 minutes. I have to hand it to Best Buy, they really had their shit together. Target could learn a thing or two from them.
We met up with my sister at the mall and did a bit of browsing. We bought a couple more items, had a little breakfast (Hot Dog on a Stick and Cinnabon FTW) and then headed home for a nap.
All-in-all, I have to say that my first Black Friday experience was a good one. I think several factors played in to that, though. First off, nothing on our list of things to buy today was one of the “GOTTA HAVE” items on everybody elses list. Also, none of the items we were after were gotta have items for the people we were shopping for. If we walked out entirely empty handed, it wouldn’t have been tragic. And of course, the economy definitely played a part in the size of the crowds. Even though Target was pretty well packed with people, I heard a couple employees talking about how this year was “nothing compared to last year.” Oi! I can only imagine.
Did you head out on Black Friday? How was your shopping experience?
One Response to “Black Friday : 2008”
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Jessi
01. Dec, 2008
It could have something to do with the fact that Target's headquarters are here but, we got in line at our Target, was handed a map of the store showing you where the items of the products on sale were located. And guess what? We got everything we went for because of that map (and because there were 3 of us to spread out). And we were in the middle of a (prolly) 300 person line. We were in and out in 15 min.