Sunday, November 22, 2009

What Would You Do, To Save A Buck Or Two?



My wife told me that she was going to buy a ******** for one of our relatives for Christmas.

Since, at that particular moment I wasn't ignoring her....I mentioned that particular product would be on sale at Staples on Black Friday, marked down from $220 to $120 - or so I accidentally read in the Boston Globe.

I called the store out near my parents' house, where we'll be for Thanksgiving.

CaptiousNut - When do you open next Friday?

StoreClerk - We open at 6am.

CaptiousNut - Are you going to have that ********?

StoreClerk - Where'd you hear that? Just kidding, yep we'll have it. Make sure you get here at 4:30am if you want a chance at one. Last year there were 50 people in line already at that time.

CaptiousNut - How many will you have? Will you have more than 50?

StoreClerk - Nope.

CaptiousNut - Okay. Thanks.

Personally, I usually do my Christmas shopping around December 23rd....so I'm pretty unfamiliar with the Black Friday nonsense. I don't watch the news either so I guess I had no real idea these stores with their specials were such a mob scene.

IMO, these retailers are stupid. They probably lose money on these giveaways because no one Moronic enough to camp out for $100 savings is going to buy anything else. As a wise old bar owner in Philly once told me, "Cheap deals only attract cheap people."

I'll most likely be up at 4am next Friday anyway. But the idea of freezing, in the dark, and standing in a line remains off-putting.

However, I am curious whether the dour economy will make these early Black Friday lines longer or shorter. I could see it going either way.

1 comment:

Taylor Conant said...

I once worked for a personal computer retailer that is no longer a going concern that routinely advertised $400 Celeron-powered laptops in its weekend mailer. The store would be flooded by cheap FOBs who were coming to buy them to ship them back home to their poor relatives in Asia and they refused to be upsold on any software, warranties or additional accessories.

Did I mention that the retailer I worked for is no longer a going concern?