Several weeks before Black Friday 2009, Wal-Mart announced an
in-store price bonanza including a reduced price on the popular
Xbox 360 gaming console beginning at 8 a.m. Saturday morning.
Several weeks before Black Friday 2009, Wal-Mart announced an in-store price bonanza including a reduced price on the popular Xbox 360 gaming console beginning at 8 a.m. Saturday morning.
Around 8 p.m. Friday evening, Michael Brim, founder of BFads.net, got a call from Sears: They were matching Wal-Mart’s prices – and doing so online. Soon thereafter, Amazon.com announced a similar match.
What was on sale in brick-and-mortar stores was now available from two online sites.
“All these retailers fighting it out is great because in the end the consumer wins,” said Jon Vincent, founder of BlackFriday.info.
But with customers spending their limited holiday budgets before America’s most famous shopping explosion, could 2009 signal the pending death of the traditional Black Friday, the big shopping-sale day after Thanksgiving?
Don’t count on it, Black Friday analysts say, for a number of reasons.
First, the pre-Black Friday sales are fundamentally different from the day after Thanksgiving deals, offering a sampling of perhaps a dozen discounts. On Black Friday, hundreds of items have their prices slashed.
During “the early sales it’s a limited amount of products, so rather than finding hundreds of products, you only get a handful of them,” Vincent said. “The selection is so limited that it really doesn’t give consumers the ability to get all their shopping done early. These early sales are attracting consumers, and maybe they are spending money that they wouldn’t have.”
Even more powerfully, Black Friday’s staying power has much to do with its shopping rituals.
From crews of friends and family plotting their morning shopping route, pitching tents in long lines outside of top retailers for “doorbuster” deals, and then charging through the store’s open doors, Black Friday has become a “rite of passage for so many people,” said Kathy Grannis, spokeswoman for the National Retail Federation.
“In addition to just the shopping activities, most of the time you have families who get together for one time a year and they choose Thanksgiving,” Grannis said. “I don’t know if mothers and daughters, brothers and sisters, or aunts and uncles will ever stop appreciating Black Friday.”
Brim pointed out that its hard to get the rush of Black Friday’s “full-impact shopping” style while staring at a computer monitor.
Lastly, retailers have kept some of their deals a secret until Black Friday morning, rewarding those ardent deal seekers who make the trek out into the November cold.
“There is that ‘little ace up our sleeve’ going on,” Brim said. “What you see right now isn’t necessarily all that’s going to be on Friday.”
Formulating a strategy is half the battle
“Black Friday” deals have already started this year and they’re coming fast and furious. To get the best ones, it helps to have a strategy. Here are our Top 5 tips for snagging that holiday deal:
1.Shop early. Preparing for a Black Friday outing? Shop online on Thursday first, counsels dealnews.com. “In years past, we’ve seen some deals sell out before Black Friday.” So that means going online as early as possible – after 9 p.m. Wednesday. Actually, you should be keeping an eye for great gifts months in advance, says Julia, aka Bargain Babe, who runs the BargainBabe blog. “Buying early is one strategy for keeping within your budget.”
2.Love the deal – or leave it. This year’s retail scene is so competitive that you can afford to be choosy. If you can’t get to one retailer for an advertised sale, chances are other retailers are trying to match it. Check online for up-to-the-minute information (see Tip No. 5) but don’t be afraid to ask a competing retailer to match it. “The trick is proving it to them,” dealmaker.com says. “Know your store’s price-matching policy and if possible, carry circulars with you to prove that their competitor has a better deal.”
3. Get a shopping buddy. Black Friday shopping used to be characterized by a bruising free-for-all as shoppers jostled to grab popular items. “In prior years it was a contact sport,” said Michael Brim, founder of BFAds.net, a Web site that tracks Black Friday ads and sales. “If you’re quick and you’re big and a gritty shopper, you can hop from place to place to place and get three or four items if you’re at the peak of your game.” Now that big retailers have instituted a ticket system, where customers line up for tickets of particular products, the key strength is numbers.
First, having multiple friends fan out to different ticket sites is a must. Next, Black Friday pros use a buddy system: an “explorer” who charges through aisles looking for particular items while another mans the shopping cart in a central location. “If there is any chance of chaos on Black Friday, you don’t want to have a cart with you,” Brim said. “It may work well as a battering gram but when there are 14 other carts in there you won’t have room to maneuver.”
4. Plan ahead. “No one wants to sit in traffic on Black Friday, so make sure to map out the stores that you want to hit,” counsels dealnews on their new Black Friday strategy guide. “Know when they open, when they close, and if applicable, what hours during the day their best sales will take place.”
5. Go online. Most of Black Friday’s good deals are available online as well as at the store, Brim said. “Unless you want one of the bargain-basement door busters, unless you’re there for the thing that Best Buy or Wal-Mart are going to have (only) 10 of, the majority of the sales are available online.” Often, companies will advertise their in-store-only sales on their Web sites. So even if you plan to shop bricks-and-mortar stores, it pays to check their Web sites first.
No no’s
On the other hand, here are two old school shopping tricks that don’t work so well anymore:
1. Casing the joint. Going to a store before Black Friday to familiarize yourself with the terrain is not a bad idea, but don’t be surprised when the laptop you want is stacked next to the microwaves, for example, Brim said. “A lot of the big items are consumer electronics and usually that’s one part of the store. To prevent the mass mobs, they may put the DVD players next to the Washing machines.”
2. Strategic restocking. If you see the item you want during your reconnaissance mission, don’t try to stash it in a dryer or oven for easy recovery during the Black Friday melee, Brim said. Stores are now keen to this trick and do more stringent checks on products.
