Black Friday

[Drac]

Well its finally arrived, BLACK FRIDAY... My wife left at about 4:30AM according to my best guess..She ventured out yesterday morning very early and wound up having to file a complaint with a local " big box" store along with about 1/2 dozen others..Seems that the store only had one of the featured items they advertized..

 

[terryl965]

Well its finally arrived, BLACK FRIDAY... My wife left at about 4:30AM according to my best guess..She ventured out yesterday morning very early and wound up having to file a complaint with a local " big box" store along with about 1/2 dozen others..Seems that the store only had one of the featured items they advertized..

That ddoes not surprize me at all, I wish her great success in her endevour today.

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

Today I have to go shopping to get Toilet paper. The greatest bargain of all is the one you actually need.

 

[Lynne]

In Spring Valley, NY, the Wal-Mart opened at 5:00 am. A 34-year old clerk was trampled to death. A pregnant woman was knocked down and miscarried. Three others were hurt as well.

I told you New Yorkers, overall, were rude. It's me, me, me.

 

[SA_BJJ]

In Spring Valley, NY, the Wal-Mart opened at 5:00 am. A 34-year old clerk was trampled to death. A pregnant woman was knocked down and miscarried. Three others were hurt as well.

I told you New Yorkers, overall, were rude. It's me, me, me.

Thats insane...well I ventured out at an early 10 am to the local best buy store in search of a hard to find Nintendo Wii for the kids. Thank god I got there early because they only had about 50 left...haha

 

[Ninjamom]

UPDATE:

1. I just read the pregnant lady and her baby are fine (as of 12:30 EST).

2. One clerk and three other people were knocked down. The clerk then had a heart attack. The store was immediately closed to allow emergency personel in and out. Shoppers already inside were allowed to complete their shopping before being escorted out of the store.

Yes, it's bad, but not as bad as first reports indicated. My prayers are with the clerk and his family members.

 

[Lynne]

UPDATE:

1. I just read the pregnant lady and her baby are fine (as of 12:30 EST).

2. One clerk and three other people were knocked down. The clerk then had a heart attack. The store was immediately closed to allow emergency personel in and out. Shoppers already inside were allowed to complete their shopping before being escorted out of the store.

Yes, it's bad, but not as bad as first reports indicated. My prayers are with the clerk and his family members.

Thanks for the updates with the real facts. I'm so glad the pregnant woman and her baby are doing fine.

My prayers are with all as well.

 

[shesulsa]

Well, we were disappointed this year. I got up at 1:40 am to stand in line at Kohl's in Portland starting at about 3 am.

In every store I hit, many of their advertised door-buster specials (the Wii Guitar Hero III included) were limited to less than 20 and in some cases less than 10 in quantity. Kohl's handed out a ticket for each of their extremely limited items to the first six people in line who came for that specific item (that was a digital cam corder) and handed out numbers for the jewelry department.

I had to spend way more than I intended on the Guitar Hero for Wii and only a little more for better items than were advertised for the specific items I went for.

But this year there were shoppers who rushed the door despite the VERY CLEAR LINE of people who arrived WAY before they did. To me ... on an average day if someone wants to be rude to me and cut me off or weasle their way into line ahead of me ... whatever. I don't care. But when I get up at 1:40 in the FREAKIN' MORNING to PUT MY *** IN LINE when it's COLD AND WET OUTSIDE ... well ... people who are used to standing in line for just about everything can just do it here tpo. That's all I'm sayin'.

I didn't hear of people getting injured here but saw a few ambulances and fire trucks headed out.

The deals this year were on some of the same merchandise as last year or not as good quality. So I'm glad I didn't have a lot of money to spend. The rest of the items I'm going to purchase are available at a low-cost daily.

I hope everyone here who went returns safely and sanely.

 

[terryl965]

This is why so many do not even go out like me, merchandise is limited and people are so rude. I am glad I stayed hame and watched re-runs.

 

[Drac]

My wife got home with no reported incidents and a lot of merchandise..

 

[MA-Caver]

I thought it was shameful on how people stormed the Walmart and ended up killing an employee. And that a pregnant woman got hurt. Glad to hear she's okay.
Crazy that people get up at late hours to catch a sale early in the morning.
Dunno what to think about that one.

 

[MJS]

My wife and I ventured to WalMart about 830am. It was still packed. Got alot of stuff and then headed out to Kohls. It was just as packed as WM. I waited outside. She stood in line for a little over 20min at the checkout.

As far as the other incident goes that happened at Walmart....what the hell is wrong with those people???? I'm sorry, but NO sale items are worth someone getting injured or killed.

 

[girlbug2]

I refuse to participate in the annual madness of Black Friday any longer. Not even to buy toilet paper

Really, I do not understand how stores can get away with having only 20 items of an advertised special? Aren't laws against "bait and switch" tactics like that going to bite them back?

Also I don't understand what is worth getting up at O'dark thirty in the morning to stand in line for. You end up wasting several hours of your day to save, what, 50 dollars? A hundred? And what about those people who waited in line since before Thanksgiving...that's literally days worth. What a waste of precious time. It would be more worthwhile (and enjoyable)IMO to spend those 2 or 3 days working to earn a little spending money for the holiday shopping spree later. They'd come out ahead financially.

Finally, I can't wrap my head around why there aren't a helluva lot more riots and injuries every year when stores have only a few of the advertised sale items in stock and the furious customers who spent hours waiting outside are told "tough luck". What the heck are the managers thinking???

 

[Kacey]

Unfortunately, it's gotten so bad that someone has died - a staffer at Wal-Mart was trampled to death while attempting to open the doors.

A Wal-Mart employee in suburban New York died after he was trampled by a crush of shoppers who tore down the front doors and thronged into the store early Friday morning, turning the annual rite of post-Thanksgiving bargain hunting into a Hobbesian frenzy.
At 4:55 a.m., just five minutes before the doors were set to open, a crowd of 2,000 anxious shoppers started pushing, shoving and piling against the locked sliding glass doors of the Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, N.Y., Nassau County police said. The shoppers broke the doors off their hinges and surged in, toppling a 34-year-old temporary employee, Jdimypai Damour of Jamaica, Queens, who had been waiting with other workers in the store’s entryway.
People did not stop to help the employee as he lay on the ground, and they pushed against other Wal-Mart workers who were trying to aid Mr. Damour. The crowd kept running into the store even after the police arrived, jostling and pushing officers who were trying to perform CPR, the police said.
...
As the doors snapped open and people streamed in, several people fell on top of one another. The 34-year-old employee who died was at the bottom of the pile, the police said.
...
Lieutenant Fleming said that the store “could have done more” to prevent the melee.
...
“I’ve heard other people call this an accident, but it’s not,” he said. “This certainly was foreseeable.”

The incident was reported by the New York Times.

 

[arnisador]

Incredible. But, a crowd is unpredictable. At 2000 people, the ones in the rear have no idea what's happening in the front.

 

[Jade Tigress]

I've come to hate holiday shopping over the years. Yesterday was the first time I ventured out on Black Friday. Actually, it wasn't bad. I left the house at 9:30am, went to Kohls first. Got some fantastic bargains, but the line! OMG. The line! Wrapped half way around the store on both sides. I stood in line for about a 25min. I thought, oh great, what have I gotten myself into?

Next was Target. The sales...not so great, but the store was empty. I cruised around it like it was a Tuesday afternoon in June and walked right up to an empty checkout register.

Then to Meijer, same situation as Target, and that was enough shopping for me for one day.

However, I only have one big ticket item on my list this year, which I did not look for yesterday. I'll head over to Best Buy sometime before Christmas. I suppose if you're looking for deals on big ticket items there will be craziness at the store offering them. I did avoid Walmart like the plague.

 

[Drac]

Well another Black Friday has come and gone..This was possibly one of the worse ones in my memory, what with the incidents that occured at that Wal-Mart.. I am always amazed at the actions of people who one minute will be saying Merry Christmas, and the next acting like total unthinking animals..

 

[girlbug2]

Incredible. But, a crowd is unpredictable. At 2000 people, the ones in the rear have no idea what's happening in the front.

That's why God invented megaphones! And cattle races.
Seriously if people are going to behave like cattle..

 

[Drac]

That's why God invented megaphones! And cattle races.
Seriously if people are going to behave like cattle..

Don't forget the cattle prods...

 

[Drac]

Well another Black Friday approaches..I have been real lucky as I was usually assigned to dispatch during my law enforcement days and was out on injury for 2 of them..SO is anyone here venturing out on that day????