Black Friday - Who Doesn't Care?

[tink2dw]

If I have to hear that cotton picking awful dam Khols Black Friday Black Friday Black Friday Song I'm going to Screammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!
Till Khols hears me!!!!!!

Other annoying set of commercials that, Target Women if she screams 1 more time...

 

[Aliceacc]

I certainly did my share to stimulate the economy!!

It's 9:10 am, and I'm home from shopping.

I left the house shortly before 3. I hit:
Kohl's
Old Navy
Walmart (it was EMPTY)

Broadway mall: Target,
Hollister (My only line of the day: 6 or 7 minutes)
Macys
Justice
Bath and Body Works
Toys R Us annex (empty)

Roosevelt Field:
JC Penney
B Dalton

There was NO ONE out until I hit Roosevelt Field. Even then, I got a great parking space, and did NOT wait on any lines.

So I'm tired and broke, but happy.

And I have $45 in Kohl's bucks, and I forget how much from Justice to spend another time.

 

[ssawka]

I prefer to not step into a brick and mortar store ever! The only exceptions to this are for food and clothing. The only "department" stores we ever go to are Koh'ls for clothing and the occasional trip to Costco (mostly for food). Amazon has everything I need and at great prices (usually!) and being a Prime member I know my purchases will be delivered in two days or less. I am getting to the point where it is not worth my time, effort, or gas to drive around town to save a few bucks!

 

[Marionnette]

I prefer to not step into a brick and mortar store ever! The only exceptions to this are for food and clothing. The only "department" stores we ever go to are Koh'ls for clothing and the occasional trip to Costco (mostly for food). Amazon has everything I need and at great prices (usually!) and being a Prime member I know my purchases will be delivered in two days or less. I am getting to the point where it is not worth my time, effort, or gas to drive around town to save a few bucks!

ITA (except for the part about Kohl's, I rarely shop their B&M stores).

There is just too much craziness at the malls and box stores on Black Friday. Was a half price xbox worth pepper spraying 20 people (including kids)? Is there ever a good reason for firing a gun in shopping mall (Fayetteville, NC)? People getting trampled in the rush everywhere, pushing, shoving, nastiness. What a way to start a season that celebrates the coming of the Prince of Peace!

 

[The 4 "Quay"balleros]

I don't care! Slept in, now I'm going to do yard work- what a beautiful day for this time of year!

 

[bettymae1121]

I generally don't care either, there usually isn't anything I want enough to justify the hassle.

In '08 though, there were several things that had GREAT prices that made perfect gifts for my brothers' families, plus an item I wanted for myself. So I got up at 3:30 (I have the day after t-day off from work) and headed to Kohl's for their 4 AM opening and then to Target for their 6 AM opening and got everything on my list. It was actually a lot of fun. The people I was next to in line before the opening were all nice to chat with, and at Target they handled out sample sizes of Starbucks pepermint mochas to help warm us up. Once the doors opened people behaved well, everyone walked quickly into the store but no one ran, shoved, or acted like idiots that I saw.

Ever since then I always look at the ads to see if there is something worth repeating the experiance, but so far nothing. And this year not only wasn't there anything worth bothering with, I'm 7 months pregnant and don't want to take the risk of being caught in a crowd if things go bad.

 

[tink2dw]

There is just too much craziness at the malls and box stores on Black Friday. Was a half price xbox worth pepper spraying 20 people (including kids)? Is there ever a good reason for firing a gun in shopping mall (Fayetteville, NC)? People getting trampled in the rush everywhere, pushing, shoving, nastiness. What a way to start a season that celebrates the coming of the Prince of Peace!

And the police face slamming a man into the concrete floor smashing this face blood spurting and pooling at Walmart and this is how his wife and child find him! Hand Cuffed, eyes rolling back in his bloody head! Happy Holiday!

 

[QVCshopper]

Ever since then I always look at the ads to see if there is something worth repeating the experiance, but so far nothing. And this year not only wasn't there anything worth bothering with, I'm 7 months pregnant and don't want to take the risk of being caught in a crowd if things go bad.

Haha! I'm eight months pregnant and went to Target last night. Not surprisingly, I was the only preggers lady I saw. But I'm happy to report that my sister and I experienced a great, well organized shopping experience in which we were able to buy everything we went for. Everyone was nice, and while lines were long, people waited patiently. We declared it our best BF yet... Plus with the midnight opening, I was able to not miss out on my kids waking hours and I still got to sleep a lot when I got home.

 

[NancyIL]

At almost 10 a.m., while still in my nightgown and robe, I checked the Black Friday deals at Amazon. I ordered Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 in regular and Blu-Ray formats, plus one other DVD. There - my Black Friday shopping is done!

 

[tink2dw]

Didn't care, no money anyway. I looked at the ads but saw nothing that was a really really good sale on anything.

 

[Kirby]

I had thought about getting out to Kohls this morning to look at their luggage but I don't have any desire to leave the house. I don't think I'll be doing much online shopping either. We have an open air mall not to far from us and I enjoy shopping there during the Christmas season listening to the holiday songs as I stroll down the walk.

 

[Pooh2]

Don't usually do BF but saw dvds really cheap to send over to Aghanistan and drove by the Walmart last night and kept driving. There were cars in parked on every possible flat surface within a mile of the store as well as in the snowbanks and median strips!

Went back this morning, got right in, got a ton of movies to send to our soldier, and no line to check out!

I think that is enough BF for me!

 

[bluehen]

I will tell you I am not a hard core shopper. In general I don't like to shop and have never been to a BF opening. And furthermore would never wait in line for 12 hrs to save money. I will say the midnight opening was the deciding factor. I will not get up at 3 AM but do not have an aversion to going to bed then.

Having said that we decided to hit Kohls last night. As we were driving home from our great family Thanksgiving ( a heartfelt thanks and sorry you had to go through this, to all the retail workers out there) we went by Best Buy. There were 500 people in line 3 hrs before it opened. YIKES Toys r us and walmart were just as bad. As we went by another Kohls there was no one in line. We congratulated ourselves on picking the correct store to go to. They don't usually have those minimum 10 type stuff that means camping out to get one, so we were not too surprised.

After a nice late night snack we head down to our local Kohls right at the bewitching hour ....I mean opening time. Wow. The line was about 500 people long to get in with another 100 or 2 waiting for the line to proceed in before them. Kohl's had employees ever vigilant to those dreaded line jumpers ( no Brazilian flags in sight). We took probably 5 minutes to get through the door. We grabbed the few must haves and walked to the empty checkouts and paid for our items. We took them to the car and ventured back in. At this point the place was pretty nuts. I must say the most important attribute to shopping at this point is to realize you are on a safari for the fabled deal. If it were easy it would be no fun. We filled our hands again. Now what to do. We were warned about leaving our stash unprotected. Hmmmm good advice. We went to the area where the courtesy desk was and asked if we could stash our goods here like a good squirrel preparing for winter. The woman behind the counter said no problem she would watch it but couldn't promise anything. I told her if she would not defend our stash til her death I'm not sure I would leave it here. Needless to say everytime we came back to increase the pile we would burst out laughing at each other.
At about 1:30 we thought lets go. The rest can be hunted down at a later date. First real hiccup. The line literally circled the store inside. I'm thinking "O no. Either hours in line or give up the spoils of a great hunt. We decided sleep could wait a bit and figured we would shop for a while and see what the line does. The DUH moment. 700 or more people walk into a store at the same time.....of course they would want to check out AT THE SAME TIME. About a half hour later the line is dwindling. Well even to a non shopper, shopping is better than waiting in line. Kudo's to Kohl's. They had every register open and that totals in the neighborhood of 30. As we shopped more and more the line kept slowly decreasing. Finally at 3:30......yes 3:30.......we have had it and the lines are pretty short now as the store is relatively empty. We now loaded up our stash on the new found shopping cart and loaded both of us down. The next problem arose as we still had stash left. A nice employee (again laughing at me.....a trend I'm not sure I like) helped us to now empty checkouts. As we finish our order the checkouts are now empty. The checkout area now had a feel of a championship lockerroom. Everybody congratulating everyone else. I swear I even smelled gatorade. All in all it was a fun time that I won't need to repeat for a while.

My biggest observation was that there were two types of people. Those cursing and disgusted and those that were actually enjoying the experience. I observed very few in between. The bottom line is what do you expect. When you walk into a major department store with 700 of your closest friends I would not expect a real smooth shopping experience. Kohls did a great job in my opinion and most everyone laughed about the obstacles and just dealt with a few inconveniences. I have now done most of my Christmas shopping and only lost a few hours sleepwhile actually enjoying myself.

 

[Mysteria]

I work at Kohls and started at midnight so I guess I had to care. There was a huge line (about 400 people) when the store opened.

I have to say thank you Kohls shoppers for being completely civilized. I think people were better behaved today than they are on some normal days.