Black Friday Looked Better in the Ads than Real Life!

My brother-in-law, Bill making a decision

I usually love Black Friday. In fact, I think it is our civic duty to shop today since it sets the momentum for all the consumer spending for the holiday season.

After reviewing all the flyers on Thanksgiving, we set our strategy. We awoke at 4:30 am to get to Best Buy by 5:00 AM (opening hour). What I saw amazed me. It was not the hundreds of people in line (some who had been there since 2:00 AM). But  once inside the store, if I did want to buy something, the check out line was all the way around the store. It looked a ride at Disneyworld! Also, while I did not expect to find the two laptops they had on sale for $199, many of the door breakers still could not beat the price at Amazon.

The lines at Target were worse. As soon as you walked in, the line to check out started at the front of the store and snaked around the entire store. When we arrived at OfficeMax they were totally disorganzied. They only let 30 people in the store at a time (the rest of us were let to stand out in the cold). Once inside, they could not find some of the doorbuster merchandise. I did buy a compact camera for my wife wanted and saved $30 but it took an hour of my time save it.

Although next year I will stay in bed, it was great to see excitement for consumers after a long hard year. The frenzy…was almost invigorating although for me, the smart money sleeps in or shops on eBay.

How was Black Friday for you?