Black Friday Sales (1 Viewer)

[Michael Elliott]

I just returned home from Wal-Mart (3am right now) and if you're only going there for the $3 movie then I'd say you can hold off going in the morning. I'm not sure how it'll be at other stores but I'd guess there were at least 100+ copies of each of the movies. The store in Radcliff had them thrown into a bin so I'd say there will be a big fight for them but they seemed to have plenty. There was a bin at the front of the store, one by the pet center and three more in the back where the normal bins are. I'm not sure if they were computers or TVs but the row that seperates the food and the "other stuff" had at least 500 of them. The labtops had around 30 in back but this stuff wasn't out yet (although I got one). They had some brand of DVD player (forgot which one) for around $30 and had at least 200 of these.

While in there I only noticed about seven other people who were there just shopping. Not waiting for any of the BF stuff, although they did pick up some of the $3 movies. My friend was there working and I talked with him for a while and he says most of the stuff they have is well stocked up on. Since they're open 24 hours people could be in there RIGHT NOW shopping but most of the bigger stuff's prices won't drop until 5am. The DVDs, CDs and smaller items are already marked down because these prices will stick until they sell out. If it takes 2 weeks they'll be there for $3.

The Wal-Mart in E'town looks empty but the Target had around 15 people waiting. The biggest shock was the Best Buy, which had at least 75 people waiting in line. I drove through the parking lot to see what type of person waits in 20 degree weather. There were a lot of tents set up, people wrapped in blankets and a few people had some fires going.

 

[Gregg Loewen]

wow...I just got back....it is 7 AM.

My Walmart which is very rural had about 150 people waiting when the doors open. The staff were very organized and even had copies of the floor layout to help with directions.

I got a few 48 AA battery packs for $5 each. Also got 2 of the laptops for 378 each. There were perhaps 60 of these, though somebody told they only had 20 (they were wrong). All the laptops were gone in 15 minutes. I had a little bit of a guilty conscious as the ad said (limit 1 per customer), but to avoid "easy" detection I had my cart rung up as 2 purchases. I was not sure if the cash register would automatically detect the 2 laptops.

I also went to Radio Shack, I got some micro portable ipod speakers for $10, USB cams for $10 (one for each laptop and or child), and a 1 gig USB drive that is also a FM tuner and MP-3 player for 49.99 (after $70 rebate).

Home by 7 AM!!

 

[Joseph S]

Thanks for the lists.

Office Space SE with Flair, Shield 1-3 - BB
Arrested Development S2, Simpsons S6, 24 S3 - CC

They all think they're getting XBoxes to ebay.

 

[Mitch Stevens]

This is terrible advice. I went to my local Walmart at 7 am, looking for the $3 DVDs, when to my horror, discovered that almost every single DVD that was priced at $3 was completely gone.

I was gonna buy "8 Mile," "All The Right Moves," "Spy Game" and "Sleepers" and all I found was "Sleepers." The lines went on forever and ever and there were only about maybe 10 more DVDs priced at $3 inside of the bin, all of which I didn't need/want.

So after thinking about it, I decided it was best to leave "Sleepers" since it was not worth standing in line for, just to get it at $3. It would have been worth it, if I had found everything that I wanted, but since that was the only DVD I found, it wasn't worth the wait.

And this was all at 7 am. I can't even imagine how terrible it'll be by noon.

 

[SteveCallas]

Ok, lol, conflicting reports on the $3 dvds. I'll be stopping by mine later tonight and report my results. I really wanted to grab Thirteen Days and Swordfish, the others weren't that important.

 

[Jack Ferry]

Decided to go to the Palmyra PA Walmart, the more rural of the two Walmarts in my county. Probably a good decision. Got there at 4:30am, and waited with the huddled masses gathered around the pallets spread out in the dairy aisle. All the 5am sale items were wrapped in black plastic, with sales associates standing by with box cutters.

This is by far the friendlier of the two stores, so I was hoping for relatively humane reactions from the crowd.

The serious jockeying for position started at about 4:45. (Several people had already cut in front of me, pretending to look at other items.) Since the skids of stuff were in the center of the aisle, there were small mini aisles on each side. A few brilliant shoppers pushed their empty carts down these aisle, guaranteeing there'd be no room. The pallets with the largest, heaviest items (23" TVs) were at the end of the aisle, and the laptops that everyone wanted were in the middle. At 4:55 I commented to another customer that "this has disaster written all over it".

The 5:00am "Go for it" announcement was made, and I was instantly carried along to near the middle of the aisle. But only near, since there were too many bodies for me to actually reach the pallet with the laptops. A woman near me was foolish enough to bring her small daughter into this madness, and I saw that someone was trying to shove a cart into her. I blocked it with my foot to try to protect her, and yelled "hey, there's a kid here!" The mom saw it and finally tried to get her out of the way. Laptops went flying off the pallet, but once someone got one there was nowhere to go. A guy next to me grabbed 2, and a Walmart guy told him "don't bother, they won't let you check out with two". I told him I'd take one and he handed it over. I got the last one. The time was 5:02am.

Next came trying to get out of the aisle. Of course by that time people were pulling down the TV set boxes, further blocking the aisle. I stepped around a box, and somehow got out. No line at checkout, so I was out quickly.

Bottom line: I got my $378 HP laptop and (arguably) had fun doing it.

Since we had lots of time left, we then hit Media Play, Best Buy and Target. Worst line: an hour and a half (or so)at Best Buy. Observation: box set DVDs do not sell out quickly, and you can get them later in the morning. In fact, I was able to easily find all the DVDs I was looking for.

I'm willing to go shopping one day per year. Guess I'm done for the next 364 days.

 

[todbnla]

Got to my local Best Buy for 4:25am, the parking lot was already full and the line was at least 75 long, pass on that, so I drive by Wallmart across the street, at least 200 people scattered between the 3 entrances, pass on that too. I go to my local Sam's Club next door where only 6 people are in line, I wait until 4:45 am and get out of the car, now there are about 10. At 5am they let us in, the big seller is 1200 thread count sheets which a pallet of is gone within 30 minutes @ $96 a copy, people grab two and three sets at a time! Next biggest seller there is plasma and lcd tvs but not reall deals on those, they had a hp laptop bundle deal too but it was a $1k. So, for my early morning bed exit I came home with 1 set of 1200 thread count king sheets, a box of soap powder, Garth Brooks box set cds, Office Space SE on DVD and thats it. I should have stayed in bed!

 

[Jack Ferry]

Well Todd, you'll soon realize it was all worthwhile when you are laying in bed in your freshly laundered 1200 thread count sheets watching Office Space and humming one of Garth's hits.

But I believe you have my stapler.

 

[Michael Elliott]

I guess it'll go store by store then. I went with a friend to the E'town store and they had at least seven bins worth of the $3 titles. I picked up four more titles while my friend racked up 33 discs (27 different films, some doubles for family members). This was around 10:30am.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Is BB having some kind of sale of Office Space today that I missed?

 

[Jimi C]

I picked up one of the 4 Toshiba projectors at my local best buy this morning.. i only had to get there at 830pm last night.. :b I had a few late arrivals offering to buy the hold sheet off of me.

 

[Jack Ferry]

Saw copies of it there, but I don't think it was on sale. But I think Target online has the special edition for $13.99.

 

[Michael D. Bunting]

Mike

Just noticed that amazon.com also has the Office Space "flair" set for $12.99 (Free shipping if your order is $25+)

Office Space "flair" set

 

[Malcolm R]

I think I whine about this every year, but I think it bears repeating since it's what I consider one of the biggest, most blatant, and seemingly uncontested false advertising campaigns of the year.

If you're going to advertise "six-hour specials" that are "good from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m.," then you should have sufficient stock on hand to satisfy all demand for the duration of the sale. The fact that all the "good stuff" is gone by 2 minutes into the sale is ridiculous and I can't believe States' Attorneys General are not clamping down on this.

Obviously, if you have 500 laptops on hand, and you sell out after 4 hours, then at least you made an honest effort. However, if you only have 30-40 in quantity, who are these retailers supposed to be fooling by advertising this as a "six-hour sale" offer? They should not be allowed to do this.

There's very seldom anything I'd personally want at these BF sales anyway, and I stay far, FAR away from the stores on this day. But if I did want to take advantage, I shouldn't have to camp out overnight in the parking lot then bodyslam my way into the store to get it when the retailer is advertising it as "good from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m." I should be able to show up at 9-10 a.m. and still be assured the same deal and sufficient inventory.

Perhaps I should check the State of Wisconsin web site. All the Wal-Mart BF ads on TV said the ad and prices were not applicable in Wisconsin. Do they not allow these types of blatant bait-and-switch sales?

 

[Patrick Sun]

I first went to Fry's, but got there a quarter after 5 a.m. so I missed out on the $399 laptop deal, but I did find the other deals:

$23.99 each:
Lost Season 1 $23.99 (gift)
Desperate Housewives Season 1 $23.99 (gift)
The Incredibles $8.77 (gift)
The Ring $2.99 (gift)

Went to Target, and picked up on the deals:

Family Guy vol. 2 $17.88
Anchorman $5.88 (gift)
Shark Tale $5.88 (gift)
Robots $8.88 (gift)

Circuit City was a zoo early, so I stashed the DVDs I wanted underneath in the extra copies rack, and went to Best Buy.

I bought most of the DVD offerings at Best Buy, hours after the 5 a.m. start, and was pleasantly surprised to still have a nice selection to choose from. Thankfully these were mainly gifts. Checkout was also pretty fast once the big early crowd was processed.

Happy Gilmore SE $3.99 (gift)
Billy Madison SE $3.99 (gift)
Honey $3.99 (this was for me, I admit it)
The Scorpian King $3.99
Anchorman $5.99 (gift)
Friday Night Lights $5.99 (gift)
Apollo 13 2-disc $5.99 (gift)
Grinch $5.99 (gift)
Shrek 2 $5.99 (gift)
Meet the Parents $5.99 (gift)
Meet the Fockers $5.99 (gift)
Arrested Development Season 1 $14.99 (gift)
Arrested Development Season 2 $14.99
Chappelle's show Season 2 $14.99

I only bought 3 of the $3.44 DVDs from Wal-Mart because the rest of the selection was either Full-Screen editions, or titles I wasn't interested in. Thankfully the self-checkout line didn't take about a few minutes.

Rush Hour 2 $3.44
13 Days $3.44
She's the One $3.44
Fever Pitch $9.87 (gift for a Boston Red Sox fan)

Went back to Circuit City, most of the cheap $4.99 DVDs were picked through, as were the $8.99 DVDs.

Falling Down $4.99 (gift)
Original Sin $4.99
Road to Perdition (dts) $4.99
Napolean Dynamite (x2) $8.99 (gift)

I did like that the Road to Perdition DVD was the dts edition, while the other stores offered the full-screen editions, or the non-dts edition.

Swung by Target once more, and picked up:

LOTR: FOTR $5.88 (gift)
LOTR: TTT $5.88 (gift)
LOTR: ROTK $5.88 (gift)
Crash $8.88
Family Guy vol. 3 $17.88 (for a gift)

Anyhow, a pretty tiring day given all the driving around and hunting for parking spots. Whew!

 

[Frank@N]

Fought my way through the tidal wave of humanity at my local CC to score 'Kingdom of Heaven' and 'Wild Things' unrated.

Thanks for the heads up!

 

[Joseph S]

No. They just have the exclusive $22 set with coffee mug and stuff.

 

[todbnla]

Got my Office Space S/E at Sam's for $12 and change.

 

[TommyJD]

I enjoy the amusing tales of "Black Friday Sales".Was going to try and get one of the $388 laptops at Walmart but decided not to at the last minute(after being witness to last years Walmart 5AM madness).Was about to trek to Bestbuy at 6.30AM and to my pleasant surprise the DVDs I wanted (The Shield and 24) were available online for the same price.The low shipping was worth saving some gas.So the trek to Walmart was about 11AM and the $3 DVDs were just about gone except for a handful Full Screen editions I passed on.They had the new Family Guy set out early and my daughter convinced me to buy it for her for christmas.The pre-lit christmas tree I wanted was also gone(and this was'nt even included in the early hour madness).Once back in the car I hear a Lowe's ad advertising the same tree for $5 less.Next stop Lowe's to get one of the last trees(the had 10 left after mine).Met some guy buying about 6 of them and forcing them in his small Saturn.I agree that if these retailers are offering these sale items from 5-11AM there should be suffecient quantity to carry them through that time frame.

 

[Daryl Stovall]

I was able to score "That 70's Show" season Three at Target for only $17.88.