Shopping
A friend of mine told me she was intending to go to Wal-Mart to get one of those $300 lap top computers on black friday, the day after Thanksgiving. I asked her if she was insane. She asked me what I was talking about. This is a woman who is recovering from surgery who can’t stand for a long period of time. I am a black friday shopping veteran.
So I told my friend about the shopping wars. Starting on Wednesday this year the Christmas Shopping War of 2005 began. This war was different from prior shopping wars because it started a full 2 days early which meant the battles would be more fierce and by black friday the battle weary shoppers would be in full battle regallia. I predicted violence. She thought I was joking. I wasn’t.
Last year I watched people at the local Best Buy push, shove and get in line at 2:oo am for $49 DVD players and with a rewards card they got a free CD. Now the stakes were raised at Circuit City and Wal-Mart with Lap-Top computers going for hundreds off the regular price. At Wal-Mart last year the line was a mile long for television sets. People had accidents getting into the parking lot. The police were called out for a near riot at Kohls when some employee looked to be opening up a door and a second line formed. People at the front of the lines swaped strategies with relatives in lines at other stores on cell phones doing reconocence. Yes there were lines there too. Yes they knew what to get first and what could be sacrificed if need be. It was clearly war planning. Very young children were not brought to these scirmishes. But older children who could scurry around adults or cut in lines they were brought and given orders on what to do in the store. What to grab first.
My friend had no idea. Black friday is named for the fact that stores go into the black and make about 20% or more of their profit for the year on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It is the most profitable day in retail. With the stores extending the shopping for two more days from Wednesday through Friday they hoped to extend the profit. What was more likely to happen was to extend the chaos and frantic pace of shopping in the first few hours of special deals for the few who braved the cold weather and crowds.
There were people trampled and a person was beaten for cutting into line this year. It happened somewhere back east. Chicago and Orlando I think. The cities aren’t that important, it could have been anywhere.
I had actually thought about skipping black friday altogether, I did the one big ticket item I wanted online at midnight Thursday into Friday, but I like crowds and I like shopping and my husband wanted some last minute items for family. I was first in line at a small store not advertizing much by way of sales, certainly no door busters. It was 6:00 am. I got no wrist band, no CD. I had to park a ways down from the store, because they are in the same lot as Wal-Mart which still hadn’t emptied out after being open an hour. Sports Chalet had a line waiting for the store to open. I was first. I got some curious glances from the clerks inside. They had their regular Christmas circular, with their regular coupon on the back. I was getting about 15 items. I could brouse on black friday and not rush. It was shopping luxury. I didn’t get trampled. No one tried to grab items from my cart. Nothing was $400 off regular price, but there was stock to go around. When I came back at 12:00 noon (because my husband thought one of the items was nice enough to get two), there were plenty left. I didn’t feel insane when I got home. It was a nice feeling.
I wonder what shopping would be like if stores carried enough stock so people could get enough of the items they wanted without waiting in line at dawn? But then there wouldn’t be as much news to tell. Meanwhile I survived the black friday shopping wars of 2005.
