Did you “Black Friday” shop?

Posted on Nov 28 in 2008 pregnancy, personal storiesby TalinaPrint

We set the alarm for 3:45am last night. When the alarm went off we both reached for our laptops and pulled up them on to our laps while we sat in bed. We hunted for the products we wanted, we pulled up the sites offering the products, we refreshed the pages waiting for the sales to go live. When they did we added the stuff to our carts, we reached for the bank cards, processed the orders and then went back to bed.

It was pretty crazy to see the servers hang on big retailer sites like Amazon and Walmart. Both N and I had some hair pulling moments while trying to check out this morning. Walmart’s site was having major server errors and Amazon’s site was hanging big time for me.

First my product was in stock, then it was sold out the it was back in stock and finally my order processed. Whew!

Eventually we got our orders processed and were celebrating our great deals. We didn’t have to deal with other crazy shoppers, thank goodness! I am very irritable these days and probably would have got myself in to a fight or something.

Can you believe that people were injured and even killed today just by shopping? One Walmart worker was killed in Long Island today, many other shoppers were injured. I think the whole concept of Black Friday is just degrading and plain embarrassing for shoppers. I refuse to wait in lines outside a store in the wee hours of the morning and I won’t run through stores or elbow other shoppers for that great deal.

Shoot I don’t even like the feeding trough feel of buffets so I am totally not one to join the shopping mobs on Black Friday. Especially since I am pregnant and all and can you believe I am at then end of my 1st trimester already? Woot!

Anyway, I remember back in the day when I worked retail. I had a friend that worked at KB Toys and they would construct a “one way maze” through the store and would only let a certain number of people through the doors at a time. This was great crowd control but at the time it seemed crazy to me. Now I think more stores should consider trying to manage the mobs better.

I just can’t believe so many people are willing to partake in mobbing stores, especially since there aren’t that many killer deals. Besides are the retailers really “back in black” after this shopping frenzy or are they still in the red? Perhaps it should haven been called Red Friday.

Did you shop today? Where an how did you shop? Do you have shopping strategies and what deals did you snag?

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7 Comments

• Donna B. says:

  November 28, 2008 at 10:21 pm

  Congratulations on being 1/3 of the way through! Isn’t the whole process amazing? Thanks for sharing it with us, it brightens my day to hear about Tator Tot.

  I shopped online today but did not buy. I’m waiting for a final OK from the parents of my grandchildren before actually putting it in the cart. I love Amazon wish lists for this.

  You will not find me in a mall or large store shopping for anything as long as I can buy it online. If a grocery store delivered in this area, I might never leave the house!

  Donna B.s last blog post..Stuffed And Happy
• k says:

  November 29, 2008 at 12:48 am

  I hate shopping anyway, so no, I did not shop today. I have only gone shopping on black friday one time in my life. I hated it and have never gone again.

  ks last blog post..Project 365 Day 52 Tree Lot Cuties
• Talina says:

  November 29, 2008 at 12:23 pm

  k » Me too, it was crazy and awful!
• Hyphen Mama says:

  November 29, 2008 at 11:17 pm

  My husband ran out and got me a new laptop. He got the LAST one! I’m very excited.

  Hyphen Mamas last blog post..One goes out, they ALL go out
• Memarie Lane says:

  November 30, 2008 at 3:00 pm

  just wanted to let you know we are making some braided rugs. can’t mention it on my blog because one is for my parents and they read it. we tore up some sheets that had holes in them, and we’re using some stuff from freecycle too. brad took over the process though because he’s a perfectionist.

  Memarie Lanes last blog post..Happy Leftovers Day
• pays to live green says:

  December 1, 2008 at 8:26 am

  I am very disappointed in people that they would value a deal over the life of a human being. It is disgraceful that something like this happened any nobody even helped the guy. I did all of my shopping online and found better deals than if I were to go shopping at a store.

  pays to live greens last blog post..Los Angeles Mayor Proposes Solar Energy Plan
• Armen Shirvanian says:

  December 1, 2008 at 8:30 pm

  I had forgotten about the individuals, such as yourself, that used the online Black Friday services that happened at the same time as the offline stores were soon to release their merchandise. The two separate experiences, although about the same products, were very different in procedure. Waking up to buy items online, and then sleeping, would be something that might not be remembered in much detail later on.

  Armen Shirvanians last blog post..Ways To Respond To Events Presented To You

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