En-duhl-jer: The one who indulges
aaaaHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHH! BLACK FRIDAY! BLACK FRIDAY!! … … …
OK, well, yeah…it’s over. I guess we can’t get too excited, huh? Speaking of not getting too excited, this year had many things to not get excited about. For one, we are getting ever closer to having the name Black “Friday” cease to exist, what with 80% or so of all retailers opening on Thanksgiving day (and online deals starting on Wednesday), and unlike last year, it was *early* – many retailers opened at 6pm or earlier.
Look, I’m not a big “family” guy, but this is ridiculous. Stop opening up so early guys, no one wants this to takeover Thanksgiving (although, to be honest, it was a hell of a lot more convenient, I’ll explain later)! Thanksgiving and Black Friday represent two very opposing modes of thought. Can we avoid some conflict and give them some space? A scant few hours isn’t good enough. Anyway…
Without further ado, here’s this year’s recap. You can check out last year’s here.
What changed from last year?
The timing of it all
Well, like I previously mentioned, the fact that many stores opened up much earlier was kind of a paradigm shift for BF. It certainly made planning a lot more interesting than normal. Walmart opened at 6pm, as did Best Buy and Toys R Us. Target opened at 8pm, and stayed open for 72 straight hours.
OK, let’s stop for a second. Before going any further, let’s get one thing straight: 95% of my Black Friday purchases are done online. I will try to avoid the B&M (brick and mortar; i.e. retail store) scene if I can help it, because 95% of the time, you can get the same or better deal by shopping online. The fact that people continue to fail to see this is astonishing. I imagine one day (maybe 10-20 years from now) this will shift, but I don’t see it happening for a long time.
That said, there are just some things you cannot get online. This year, Target was the only place I went, as it had two items I was looking for that could not be replicated anywhere else.
The atmosphere
What do I mean by this? Well, things just felt…off. You know how it is when you find some great niche band / videogame / book / insert art of your choice, and you felt like you have found the most wonderful thing ever, and no-one else knows about it? Then they make a movie out of that book, or that video game you loved gets watered down through pointless sequels (stares at Resident Evil), or that rock band you love sells out, and it’s just not the same any more? Yeah, well…this felt like a sell-out year. I think Black Friday as we knew it died this year. I’m not kidding…
The people that I encountered didn’t know what they were doing. They had never been Black Friday shopping before. There were children, lots of children this year. People showed up at store open and were *shocked* that there was a line. This was a noob Black Friday, there’s no other way to describe it.
So were the changes worth it?
Advantages
With a watering down of the day, it does bring some advantages. Since nobody knew what they were doing, I was able to get in and get out of Target within five minutes. That’s never happened before. I loved it. You don’t know the torture of having to stand in line during BF…missing out on all those online deals, missing out on being to go to other stores. Missing out on family time? Yeah, uh, that too.
Say what you will about stores opening up early, in terms of convenience, I don’t think I’ve had a better B&M Black Friday. I was able to get in and out and hit many stores…before midnight! I literally was able to go to bed at a decent time! That hasn’t happened in a decade!
Gone are the days of waking up at 2am to stand out in the cold for an hour or two. Not only that, Target was open for 72 hours! Unreal! Do you know how nice it was to walk into a Target past midnight and have it be completely dead? I could get anything I wanted – save for the obviously limited top items on sale (look, if you’re going for the *doorbusters*, you’re doing it wrong; that’s the wrong approach).
Disadvantages
Even given the unique advantages this year had, I think I still prefer last year’s scheme. These time changes were just too much. What’s next? Opening in the morning (sorry, Kmart, nobody cares about you)?
Last year, Best Buy opened at midnight, Target opened at 11pm (if I’m not mistaken). That was nice. That’s good enough, and doesn’t dig into the Thanksgiving holiday *too* much. Can we scale it back next year, please?
From a retailer’s standpoint, how are they not bleeding money by opening up early? The labor costs alone should be staggering. Keep in mind that most of these companies need to pay time and a half (at least) to open up this early. I find it hard to believe they made much profit… I really hope this year was a one off, simply because Thanksgiving came so late this year. We’ll see…
Other notes
OK, so the big one for me was the fact that because the Black Friday store opening encroached into Thanksgiving directly, that meant…most everything was going live online mid-afternoon Thanksgiving day! What the hell guys! Look, I can’t just blow off my family to search for stuff online all day (well, I sort of did anyway, but…still!). Can you cool it? Many, many things went on sale Wednesday and Thanksgiving morning / afternoon. Not cool.
I was literally shopping for four days straight. Four days. Slick Deals + F5 could describe my entire Thanksgiving break.
There were some great rebates / cash-back opportunities this year (as always)! Bigcrumbs doubled its cash-back bonus for a few days, Discover also doubled its cash-back bonus (10% for Best Buy, Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart, etc), and American Express had some killer rebates. A good week for the smart online shopper. If you went through Black Friday this year without utilizing these amazing credit card deals, I strongly urge you to read the “Using and Building Credit” section here.
Final note: Don’t be fooled into thinking the best prices on items are to be had on Black Friday / Cyber Monday. You just have to keep an eye out all day / every day throughout the holiday season. I highly recommend the combination of Slick Deals, camelcamelcamel, and gemmit (shameless plug) to determine whether you’re getting a good deal.
OK, that’s enough preface. Let’s see what I snagged this year:
AMAZON
What did I grab?
NEWEGG
What did I grab?
BEST BUY
What did I grab?
TARGET
What did I grab?
WALMART
What did I grab?
HOME DEPOT
What did I grab?
LOWE’S
What did I grab?
Overall: 5/5 – Even though just Amazon and Target had anything to be excited about (for me anyway), I…still got excited for what I got this year, and that’s all you can ask for. This is my favorite time of the year. The one time of year where my cheapassery can shine, and my frugality goes out the window. I love it! Time to go into hibernation…until next year!
Well, that’s about it! Questions? Comments? What was your best find on Black Friday / Cyber Monday?
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