A bit strange that a guy with “bargain” in his site name doesn't do Black Friday …
Wow, as I'm writing this, Thanksgiving is tomorrow. Where the heck did the year go?!
It's traditionally been a time for braving roads and airports to reconnect with family and eat a bit more than we ought. (OK, a lot more.)
And the day after has traditionally been a time to brave the crowds of people at stores for The Official Start Of The Holiday Shopping Season — aka Black Friday since the 1930s.
Start more than a month in advance
As retailers now face competition from online sources, early Friday morning has morphed into Thursday night for some retailers hoping to get a jump on people's disposable income.
Some individuals are camping in front of stores days or even weeks in advance in order to be among the first let in on the Black Friday deals. Stores are loathe to argue with the free publicity that the news coverage of the lines gives them. A few like Kevin Sutton use line-sitting as a platform to call attention to the homeless, but this is more the exception than the rule. Mostly, it appears to be people trading a lot of time for a relatively small amount of money.
Then open the floodgates
But let's cast aside whether jockeying for position at the front of the line is worth it or not. (I'd rather live in a world where I had the choice to allocate my time and money how I liked, anyway!)
One thing for sure is that people don't stand in line for any length of time without a reason. In this case, they want particular deals at that store.
They've already spent substantial time waiting. Not getting those deals would be tantamount to failure. All that time down the drain.
Of course there won't be enough for everyone who wants a particular deal. The stores just want to get butts in there so that they can sell stuff, and the door-busters are how they do that.
It's a recipe for raised tension and strong words at least, injury or death at worst.
The one thing to remember about Black Friday
It's been years since I've ventured out to the stores on Black Friday. I've never stood in line to wait for a store to open on Black Friday.
Have I missed out on deals? Of course.
But the one thing I've learned is this:
Great deals can happen on days that aren't Black Friday.
So don't worry!
(But all of this wasn't to discourage you from going out for Black Friday shopping. Have fun and get some great deals! Check out BlackFriday.com for a bunch of circulars.)
You make an excellent point about the Time/Cost ratio that seems to be forgotten. Some people may actually prefer an item so much that spending the extra time to get it at a certain cost is worth it. In any case, it’s important that people be safe on “Black Friday” and financially savvy on every day of the year.
Exactly!