Lunch Break: Shoppers occupy Best Buy, St. Pete
by LauraLoo
Is there anything that you would wait in line 11 days before Black Friday? These goofy shoppers in St. Pete started waiting since Monday, November 14th, for hugely discounted items at Best Buy.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcpRJbB2eBI[/youtube]
And if you’re not that radical, have you ever stayed in line overnight (or a couple of nights) to wait for big savings?
Makes shopping at midnight on Black Friday no biggie. ;)
[HT: Drudge Report]
Nov.21, 2011 12:00 pm |
Video of the day |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
I have never gotten involved in that Black Friday business, and I never will. These people waiting almost two weeks are like aliens to me, lol.
I can’t think of any material item I would camp out overnight in order to purchase. I wouldn’t even get up at 4am for anything less than, say, a free car. Don’t those people have jobs to go to?
Same, Jack! The only times I’ve ever been in stores on Black Friday, that I can remember, are when I worked in retail and had to be there. I know people who spend days planning out their Black Friday plan of attack, and then get up super-early and rush the stores – it’s a whole thing that I just…don’t understand at all.
How much of a discount are those people going to get on the TV they’re waiting for? What are they giving up in the process? I can’t imagine they aren’t losing some money from not working, so that’s eating away at the purely cost-benefit analysis of the deal right there. And then the non-money aspects – you’d have to pay me a lot of money to take 11 days off from my life to go sleep on a sidewalk, particularly 11 days when I’m trying to bake and plan and spend time with loved ones who are in town; I can’t imagine the deal on the TV comes out to anywhere near adequate compensation. I would rather pick up two or three days of manual labor helping people move or whatever, and buy the TV full-price with the extra money I’d just earned. That’s not a hypothetical, by the way – I am having a colleague’s college-age daughter crash on my couch for a week, for some extra cash; and I’m helping two people move next week for more spending money. I much prefer that to Black Friday madness.
I’m trying not to judge based on the desirability of the item itself. TV is not really my thing – I don’t even own one – so I’m trying to think of the things I want most, and imagining, say, a 50% discount on those things. A monitor large enough to make drafting in AutoCAD pleasant; sewing machine classes to up my skill level a bit; Frye boots for the non-snowy winter days. Nope. I don’t think there would be a discount great enough on these items that would make it reasonable for me to take a week off work and sleep on the sidewalk.
Same here. I don’t venture out on Black Friday unless it is to play in the snow.
Alexandra,
I used to work at KMart through high school. I would have to get through the crowds of people at 5am to clock in for work. I would sit up in the stock room and rearrange and watch the HOARDS of shoppers in every aisle in the store.
Crazy.
To be fair I do have friends that make their lists check them twice and head out at 2am and really do get some good deals. :)
And how many will get shot this year over some MUST HAVE??!! Wait for it.
I worked a KMart in high school, too, Carla! I still have the blue light special announcement memorized, in English and in Spanish!
YAY LEN!!
Too fun! That was one of my favorite jobs!
Attention Kmart shoppers……..
It was my favorite part of the job, too, Carla!
I remember once I was making the announcements and my friend and co-worker Alicia was manning the blue light. These two little old ladies were chasing her and the light around the store between specials, not wanting to miss any deals. Alicia was making a game of trying to speed up and lose them, but they were FAST! With their great big handbags swinging alongside them like pendulums. I was trying so hard not to laugh over the PA, but I lost it a few times.
I honestly think I had more fun there than at any other job.
…I’d like to draw your attention to the flashing blue light in our Ladies’ Wear department….
Yikes, Carla and len! I can’t imagine working in a “doorbuster” store on Black Friday. I always worked in clothing retail so most of our foot traffic, at least, was from people who were just out shopping to “celebrate” the day, high off of their other deals – not really from people looking for crazy deals from our store specifically. But I was the store manager of one of the highest-volume branches in our region of my chain-store company, for a while, when I was 20-21, and it was just awful. The logistics of managing it all were kind of fun – juggling everyone’s schedules and breaks and skills and tasks; building a machine made of human beings, that kept every size on the sales floor and every register open and every room covered against theft, all of it so easily derailed by one oversight or one unplanned-for 10-minute break; emptying the registers as they hit their cash limits over and over throughout the course of the day. But the customers were just awful and it was all very depressing, overall. People always wanted to know why they could get $200 off a TV but only $5 off a shirt. Grabbing things out of each other’s hands. etc.
Someone spit on me once. She was arguing with me because we were all sold out of the thing she wanted in the size she needed (like I could do anything about that), and I offered to help connect her with an online sales rep to see if she could order the product, and for some reason that wasn’t good enough and she demanded to speak to the manager. I said I was the manager and she said I looked like a child, and asked how old I was. I said, “I’m old enough that it’s impolite to ask,” and offered to give her our corporate customer service complaint number. She took it and then spit on me and walked away. Ah, yes, Christmas spirit.
Spit on you, Alexandra?? Yeesh. Joy to the world. Working in KMart on Black Friday. Insanity. Chaos. Total Anarchy.
Len,
Hilarious! I worked in Fashion Acessories(used to be called Millenary-bleh)and my best girl friend worked in Automotive. Her five minute blue light specials were 45 minutes long. People would totally follow me around when I would go to get the thing to do my blue light on scarves. :)
“Attention KMart shoppers. There are only 3 minutes remaining on the 5 minute blue light special in our Fashion Acessories department. Our scarves will be marked down an extra 10% for 3 more minutes!”
Once I said Fashion blue light in our Flashing Accessories department.
PS I still have my greenish/blue smock and my nametag. I have been known to wear it to 80’s parties.
I wish I still had my nametag! I remember my employee number was 1212 and we got paid in cash (!!). I met my first boyfriend there, he worked in sporting goods.
At the store I worked at those of us who worked in apparel moved around from day to day between the different areas, including “millenary,” and its male counterpart “haberdashery.” That was how Alecia got lucky enough to run several specials in one day, while I go to announce all of them.
…Please make sure to have your items re-ticketed before bringing them to the cash registers! And once again, as always…
Thank you for shopping at K-Mart!
What if thousands of people prayerfully “occupied” the pubic Sidewalks in front of all the abortion businesses on Black Friday? Our local abortion business plans to be open- what are we willing to sacrifice for Life? If one family waiting for a good deal on a TV at Best Buy is worthy of news coverage, saving lives and helping women should be a media interest.
Paid in cash!!! YES! And spent it before I left the store. They were no fools back then.
Thank you for the trip down memory lane today, Len. Hilarious! Really.
I’ll take “Cyber Monday” over “Black Friday” any day.
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Ugh. It reminds me of the wildebeest crossing the river. If you’re not trampled, watch out for the crocodiles!
I usually go to Target for Black Friday; last year my dad dropped me off around 6:00 AM I think it was). This year I am forced to shop online before I leave for Thanksgiving dinner (my parents are hosting it and we have at least 80 people coming to our country home away from home house). I’ve gone to Best Buy…but it was later in the morning after the craziness has stopped…and they didn’t have what I wanted….this was a few years ago. I shopped online the last two years to get a discounted iTunes card and three years ago, to get my Blu Ray player.
Usually these line campers want inexpensive televisions or laptops that you need a ticket for (I’m on a lot of black Friday sites that get the ads ahead of time so I’ve read about this stuff). They usually have limited #s of these doorbuster items…like I don’t know….10?
I camped out all night for George Michael tickets in 1988. That was kind of fun.
The irony of course is, looking at market trends through the season, your best ‘deal days’ when there are the largest markdowns and biggest sales is the week before Christmas as stores are trying to offload for the end of the season. ‘Black Friday’ is purely a marketing ploy to start the season with heavy foot traffic.