Seriously, I was crazy enough to think that if I arrived a few minutes after 5am to Walmart that I would be able to get my hands on that $198 laptop. I got up at 4:40am, threw my clothes on, and realized that I had woken Joe up. Not wanting Ben to have to deal with a crabby, sleepy toddler so early in the morning when he had to leave for work in a few hours I made a quick decision about bringing Joe along. I threw some shoes and a coat over his pjs. I then proceeded to pick my younger sister and brother up from down the street and we arrived at Walmart right about 5am, which was opening time (we do not have a 24 hour Walmart).
Right away I knew that we were in trouble when I saw the parking lot filled, along with cars parked alongside the road and in adjoining store parking lots. Uh-oh. I drove around looking for a place to park and decided to drop my siblings off at the door so that they could look for the laptop. I found a parking spot soon after and ran into the store with Joe. Immediately I saw a line of people waiting to checkout which stretched from the front of the store to the back. In less than 10 minutes these people had grabbed cart fulls of things and were ready to checkout. Wow!
After asking several sales associated I found out that the laptops were already gone...all in less than 10 minutes. I have an inkling that maybe there were only a few laptops in the store to begin with. Onto the $2.97 hand mixer (I rarely use a hand mixer but figured that for less than $3 I could store it for those rare occasions). Nope, those were sold out too. The only other things I was interested in were the $1.97 movies. The checkout line was wrapped around those displays and those people would not budge from their spot. Besides, would I want to stand in a LONG line just to purchase a few movies? I called it quits and left for home without buying a thing.
I did go back around 11am just to get some movies and there were still several fairly decent ones left. I think I purchased 12 movies and the majority of them will be hidden away for Christmas gifts. Luckily, by this time, the store was 1/4 as crowded as it was early this morning.
I will never try to go Black Friday shopping early in the morning again. The hoards of people, all crabby and mean, was insane. Watching carts being filled with immense amounts of stuff and being pushed into others was sickening. No one was polite or nice or merry. My younger siblings (age 17 and 14) felt sick watching this hoopla as well. We were all happy to get out of the store and breathe some fresh air.
The thing is, a lot of Black Friday sales aren't even good deals, unless you were specifically going to buy that item beforehand. The prices are cheap, yes, but so is much of the stuff. I saw people throwing toys into their carts on impulse just because the prices were low. If you spend $100 on things that you had no intention of getting in the first place, are you really saving money?
Christmas HAS become too commercialized and the sheer amount of materialism is deranged. Cheap junk goes into the cart to be wrapped and handed out and forgotten at the bottom of the toy box or high on the shelf just a few days after Christmas. I can't say that I haven't fallen into that "buy, buy, buy" mentality before. I hope that this year will be different. We are doing Christmas a bit differently in this house this year (more on that later) so maybe that is partly why I found this morning, watching all the shoppers, to be disgusting. At this point, any Christmas shopping that I will be doing will be online or at small family shops.
So come clean, how many of you went shopping this morning? Did what you find make it worth the madness?
Aw, sorry your Black Friday was a bust! I hate shopping, so no, you will not find me braving any BF sales! I don't shop at all for Christmas! I give hand made or home cooked gifts and my kids get money. Then we hit up after Christmas sales and they do their own shopping! They love this and we avoid spending more than we should. (My kids are 9, 11, and 13)
ReplyDeleteI did get up an go, but I got to my first store around 8. I hit 6 or 7 stores in the same shopping center, got great deals and almost finished my christmas shopping. Worked out great! I have never gotten up in the middle of the night.
ReplyDeleteNot me. I despise crowds even in the best conditions. I stay as far away from BF as I can! we did go out today but we went to thrift shops, LOL! had a great time, took my son to lunch at pizza hut and I had a $5 hallmark coupon to use - she had several things for .99 and even 2/.99 so for .86 total I got 6 Christmas ornaments and a sheet of stickers. Great day!
ReplyDeleteHubby talked to an employee later today at the Walmart you are are talking about. I guess they opened at midnight and let people line up around the various displays, handing out tickets for the 5am deals. She also said at one point, they nearly had to call the police because the crowds got very upset with employees thinking they weren't handing out tickets fast enough, because 5 am was drawing near. Alot of pushing, shoving, and yelling.
ReplyDeleteOn a happy note, we were very busy at our little family store downtown, and everyone was very cheerful and fun to deal with!
I've done some online deals, but I won't go out into that savage jungle at the large retailers.
-Marian
You guys are all smarter than me! Next year I am staying home in a nice warm bed and then doing some shopping online in my jammies!
ReplyDeleteMarian- that explains the lady on her cellphone who I overheard talking about all the laptops being gone by 12:10 last night. I was thinking to myself "how is that possible for a store that doesn't open until 5am". Then I figured maybe they handed tickets out to the people waiting outside. Never imagined that they let them all in! I can see why there was an angry mob if everyone who arrived after 12:10 had no chance at the laptops (or other big sellers). Maybe they learned the lesson I did - stay away from stores on Black Friday!
My sister did the BF thing last year for a laptop at Walmart. She stood in line for a very long time only to find out in the end that they only had 8, yes, EIGHT to sell! I think it is so very wrong that they do this! I have never and will NEVER go to a BF event at any of the big stores. I did however hit a dollar store and it was very quiet!
ReplyDeleteI am with the ladies who don't do the BF thing. I always look at those sales and know that I could never be the person to get the great deal as I am not going to stand in line in the cold weather for hours. I prefer to stay home and shop on line.
ReplyDeleteI think that in the end it is very dangerous for stores to bait people into the stores when they only have a few of a certain "sale" item.
And then they wonder why that poor Wal-mart worker in New York was trampled to death two years ago. It's definitely insane.
I haven't done the BF shopping in an actual store since 2004, when I was pregnant with Isaac. I almost got knocked down, people were very rude and almost cutthroat trying to get the deals. SO, after that, I am content shopping from home in my pjs on the computer! More and more stores are offering some of the door buster things online now--I wrote about it on my blog today.
ReplyDeleteKevin did stop at our local Walmart on his way to work. He got there just before 5AM and all of the tickets for the lap tops were gone! He found out that they were handed out within minutes after midnight. BUT, they did have a better lap top that they decided to mark down for those that didn't get the $198 one. It wasn't quite as cheap, but it was a great price for that brand and the features that it had. So he still did get a good deal for a lap top and felt like it was worth braving the crowds for! He also picked up some pjs and jeans for the kids, and a few half price toys for upcoming birthdays!
Are you done with your shopping now? I am for the most part. Just waiting for my packages to arrive--hopefully soon and then it will just be wrapping to do. I need to stop at the dollar store and get stocking stuffers and a few little things to put in goodie baskets for my grandparents and in-laws, but otherwise am in good shape to be done by the 1st. I am SO planning to be in stores as little as possible for the month of December!!!! :)
We have had a very good experience the last two years at our Walmart. It is a 24 hour Walmart and they have all of the big bargains set up around different areas of the store. As you go in they hand you a map so you know where to go for what you are looking for. This year they did hand out tickets. It was very orderly and very organized. They had tons of items and it seemed that most everyone left happy. We were in line for a tv and we were very happy with our savings and how everything was handled. We didn't see any crazy people lol. Well I take that back I guess any of us out that early were crazy to begin with! :-) Now a friend of mine in California was trampled at her Walmart.
ReplyDeleteWe went bright and early yesterday, only my 2nd time out early on BF. But, we did not go in looking for any of the doorbusters, more to pick up the few things we had left on our lists for the kids and to get out without the kids. My teenage brother spent the night and DH and I got up about 3:45 to head to Target. We got there about 4:15, so the store had been open for 15 minutes and we saw 10 or so people already leaving with their 46 inch TV's. The line for the checkout was insanely long... all the way to the back of the store, but it moved fairly quickly, and the people were, for the most part, pleasant and happy. We left Target and went to the mall at around 5:30, where, again, there were crowds, but everyone - shoppers and employees was pleasant. We stopped for breakfast, and were home by 7:30... it was almost like a date. :) There are certain stores I would never go to on BF (though mostly stores I don't shop at anyway), and I would not stand in line for hours to be let in for a chance at getting one of the "doorbuster" items. Just not worth it to me.
ReplyDeleteI have never and probably never will go BF shopping. We went to a large WalMart on Thanksgiving so my in-laws could pick out gifts for my kids and saw many displays labeled BF sales, I was not all that impressed with the prices. I would rather spend an extra $30 shopping online than stand in line at a store (and stand outside in 20 degree weather to get in).
ReplyDeleteI am curious about the Walmart that let people in at midnight and handed out tickets. Was it advertised that WalMart would be doing that? And that seems like a big liability for WalMart to allow hundreds of potentially crazy people in their store to stand in line for 5 hours.
As far as I know, our Walmart did not advertise that they were opening at midnight to let people stand inside. All the advertisements in the paper said "Store opening at 5am". That is why it was a shock to hear that the tickets were being handed out at midnight when they let people in the doors. A total liability, I think.
ReplyDelete