leefamily23

I was at our Target at opening. They were stacked up in 3 aisles on the floor . I know our Target doesn't mark things down as much either. I've talked to them a few times when I read about great clearance deals at other Targets. They say they are a high number's store and don't have to mark down as much. Anyhow, I would have to guess our store had at least a few hundred. If not closer to 500-600. They still had a ton left on Saturday.

My sister wanted to PM a few things from the TRU ad on BF at Walmart. She got a brilliant cashier- who said Walmart never PM'd. We've done it every year. So, we asked for the manager- and of course they he put through her items. None were that big of a deal.

Usually mostly candy and dollar tree items. This year I got some really cheap DVD's on BF so those might go in there. Then usually any gift cards I'm giving my son. Usually to EB games and 1 other store. This year it will be EB Games and Itunes.

Honestly- I feel alittle awkward posting it- but I'm in the $700-900 range for my my son. I can say. We can afford it so why not. We give plenty to charity and save plenty too. We also pay cash- and don't have a single credit card. Just wanted to add it wasn't always this way. We were very poor- had to roll change to buy milk- for many years. Sometimes I think it's a way to overcompensate for those first 5-6 years we were married. This does include usually 4-5 PS2 games at $50 a pop right there. Then it will also include a new winter coat, boots, hat, ect.... as well as new sneakers and clothing. So, realistically it doesn't go very far. Ironically my sister and I just had this conversation the other day. We are suprised at how people are all over the board in what they spend. I only have 1 neice and 1 nephew and I just cut them back from $175 to $125 each this year. As well as my husband and my exchange from $500 each to $300 each. We are hoping to buy a new house in about 3-4 years when DS is a senior in high school. So, after that it will be considerably less.

The one I went to is in Hamburg NY (near Buffalo) and they had 20. They seemed to have very limited supplies of everything this year. Which never seemed the case in the past. Now, I went to a smaller Walmart later that night and they seemed to have a ton of items left over. They still had the CPK dolls, they had bins of the lightsabres, they had 7 powerwheels. They had tons of the (23 inch I believe) TV's (at least 50), and at least 100 DVD players still. They also had no less than 30 of the Dora/Sponge Bob TV/Players. There was still a pallet of those LCD TV's that were $178 or something like that. Lots of digital camera's on palletts too. As well as tons of other BF merchandise the other one ran out of. The bad thing is this Walmart has nothing else near it. All the other stores are a solid 45-60 minutes away.

I just checked ebay- thinking maybe there would be so many listed the prices wouldn't be too bad. Well there are a lot listed. HOWEVER, they are going for more than I can go to the store and buy it out of the case for. I don't get it.

Our Walmart said they had 300. Which looked about right. However, they were handing out as many as you wanted. The line was several 100 deep and there was no way I was getting one. So, I moved on.

I think the babies and little kids. The cold, crowds, all night waits, and mad rushes just don't make it right. I'm sure many parents reasoned it out- no sitters, mine was warm enough, Mine's 24 not 20 months, ect-- I just don't get it. When my son was 2, I had no sitter. I remember I pouted most of the day. BUT I didn't take him out. Seeing them is what still gets to me on BF.

I never once had to really look for a parking spot. The crowd levels over-all really seemd low. My sister and I kept attributing it to the weather (it was only in the teens w/ a windchill below zero-and they were forecasting terrible snow-which didn't hit until much later than they said). Maybe it was really that the sale items just weren't that great.

I think it's looking obvious that many store managers let themselves or someone set quite a few hot items aside at stores.

Our CC didn't have 1 single Doorbuster Item set-up. Now, I know we lost power multiple times throughout the night. However, not one other store had this problem. It was pure mayhem at our local CC.

mtjoycol- I thought the same thing.

Doesn't matter how you dress. Most people who do "shops" on stores for the corp headquarters don't come in wearing a neon sign announcing themselves. They are made to look and dress like an everyday shopper.

Our Walmart doesn't do the tickets. At least not to date. The funny thing is- usually you can go back at 5pm and they still have quite a few of the blitz items around on the pallets to be bought. I've always been impressed w/ how many items our Walmart seems to have for BF. I'm not going after a computer- so I'll look around though and see if we still have a large amount.

That may not be so-- we start seeing our BF ads on Tuesday- Thursday in the evening paper. Last year this happened w/ TRU- the ad was in our Tuesday paper.

If you're not going to get out of line--- what are you going to do w/ the Gatorade bottle??? Are you seriously going to feel comfortable doing this w/ a 100 people all gathered in line right around you?? I just can't imagine doing this in this situation....I don't know the law so I guess I'll leave it at that.

We got hit w/ a nice storm last week. Ended up w/ just under 2ft in 1 day. They're calling for it to start snowing here this week too on Tuesday night and keep straight through the weekend. It's going to make parking miserable. 1/2 the lots this weekend were overrun w/ huge snow piles.

I can't believe they only got 10. Our Walmart is known for having plenty of the doorbuster items.

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like we have the cheaper priced laptops in our area.

I took my last week of vacation this week. So, I am off from now until BF. We do Thanksgiving dinner at my moms house to boot. So, other than make 1 pie I am ready for BF. Just finalizing my plans.

The free DVD would be a great freebie offer for anyone who is already going to shop there.

Ironically my sister called me last night and told me she was doing this.

There would be too many problems if the large places like Walmart, Target, TRU, ect didn't take checks on BF morning. They pretty much have to follow the guidelines they've set for the rest of the year and stick to them.

Most stores have a way to manually run the cards when the machine's go down. Of course, the systems do get overloaded that morning and it could happen that they couldn't run anything. In that case I'd say bring a checkbook as back-up. In most cases, I would think even w/o their check scans they'd take a check if all their CC machines were down. Now, I'm more concerned about DH's direct deposit not being their on Friday morning because of the holiday. His work put out a memo and said it will be there- so we'll see. Bright side- mom told me she's got me covered if it for some reason wasn't there. She can tide me over until that Monday.

The closest mall to me is the same. It's because K-B Toys and last year the Disney Store were open so early. So they were letting people in.