Fry's Retail Store - Black Friday tips from a former sales associate

[gman863]

I was in sales at one of Fry's retail stores the previous two Black Fridays.

 

Here are a few shopping tips that will help you get the best deals at Fry's:

 

• You will not see most (if any) of the doorbuster deals on Frys.com. Your local newspaper is the only source.
• Fry's ads are different for each city. Just because an item is listed in the Dallas ad does not mean it will be available or at that price in Houston, LA, etc.
• "One per customer" is strictly enforced. If you want more than one, have an extra family member with you to purchase the second one with cash or a different credit card.
• Items such as PCs, larger TVs and major appliances require a salesperson to write a "quote" ticket in the department. If you want two or more large items (a TV and a PC), have a different person in your party get a ticket on each one. Be in line when the store opens and hit PCs first: Blowout deals there are usually the first to sell out.
• GPS units have been moved from the PC parts section to the car stereo section in most Fry's locations.
• If waiting for a sales ticket on a large item, send someone else in your group to hunt down and grab the "cash and carry" items that don't require a salesperson to write them up. This will speed up your shopping.
• In past years Fry's has extended its return policy to the end of January on items purchased after Thanksgiving; however this is not a guarantee they'll do it this year. Some items (motherboards, PC memory, camera memory cards) have a 15 day return policy.
• The checkout line snakes throughout the store but don't panic: It's one checkout line that feeds into 60-80 registers and usually it won't take much longer to get out than any other major store.
• If Fry's repeats last year's ad strategy, there will be a new ad with new one day specials on both Saturday and Sunday. Get up bright and early and check the newspaper. The same tips listed above apply for Black Saturday and Sunday.
• Fry's (like most stores) will not do price-matching on competitors' one day Black Friday specials. In order to match a price, they have to call the competitor and verify the item is in stock; this is impossible on Black Friday.

If you have any other questions on Fry's retail store sales, post them here and I'll try to answer them.

 

Happy Black Friday! :)

[gman863]

One more important tip:

 

Fry's is no longer putting price tags on items. Items (especially smaller ones) are often misplaced when placed back on shelves or pegs.

 

If you want to verify that an item is the one on sale, compare the last few digits of the UPC (scanner) code on the item against the last few digits of the UPC code printed on the shelf tag. Since Fry's doesn't have self service price checking (like Target or Wal-Mart), this will save you huge headaches versus waiting in line only to discover you got a non-sale item.