122 replies to this topic

[stationchief]

Since there's some newbies this year here at GottaDeal, let's reminisce and give 'em an idea of what BF is all about. For those of us who took part in BF lasy year, tell the tales of what happened to you taking part in BF '06. Anything interesting happen you'd like to share with the class? It's late, so I'll tell the tale of my adventure at Best Buy a lil' later.

[lovebears65]

Best part was getting everything on my list. Was in line at Best buy from 3pm on thanksgiving till opening.. The funniest thing is the lady behind me who was a first time Black Friday shopper said that shew as shopping with a pros ( me and Dh) since we go every year and she was stickign with us .. And also when the lady in front of us called the police on a line cutter and they actually came out and made him go to the end of the line

[Cannon1]

2005. Going to W_M_ at midnight, cruising the store (open 24hrs) and hearing everyone get told they couldn't put anything regarding sale items in their cart 'till 0530. Watching the managers runnin around without a clue, they hadn't staged 50%+ of the sale items on the floor by 0330. Seeing a minimum of 14 employees pour out of the break room at 0500 and get sale items off the floor and put in their baskets. Most enjoyable though was being one of the few people who had a clue on where to wait, and at 0530 being the ONLY person purchasing a 42 inch plasma tv for $572 (& the mgr asked me if I wanted another of the seven the store had, since no one else was waiting!). Oh, and being outta there by 0600 & to work by 0700. Perfection in chaos. LL: Recon the store the day prior, ask simple questions to the MOD such as: Store Layout-Where is 'such & such going to be; Purchase Process-What's my best way to prepare/avoid delays (credit card, other ID, I purchase here & pick up at a loading dock, etc...-if so park there); Concerns-Are there any problems they anticipate, or had last year. more to come...

[dmmiller]

LOL Mine was not a "great" moment. Just one I wont soon forget. DH and I were at CC all night, for what i'm really cant remember. After being in the cold all night, and standing in line for a good 2+ hours to buy our stuff, we head home to unload. And DH gets pulled over by the State trooper for speeding. thank god he let him go.

[nedsw33]

haha, well I'm new here at GottaDeal, but not so new with BF, as I've been doing it for several years now.

I think in general, my favorite part is the 'speed-walking' or 'make-it-look-like-you're-not-running-but-moving-as-fast-as-humanly-possible-to-get-to-the-doorbusters-you-want-before-anyone-else' at stores that don't hand out the vouchers like BB. Like Home Depot or Lowes.

I do look forward to some of the stories that people will tell while waiting in line...

You also gotta love the people that show up at best buy 5 minutes before opening and try to run in (cut in line) once the doors are unlocked, thinking that they'll be able to get all the doorbusters they want, but not knowing that they actually won't get a single one of them cuz of the vouchers that were handed out an hour prior. It's fun to get a good laugh at their ignorance and the fact that they thought they were being so smooth... hahahaha!!

[w1df10wr]

My neighbor had never been Black Friday shopping before. My favorite moment was the look on her face when she drove into the local Kohls parking lot about 4:30am, and got one of the last spots available. She thought I was kidding about how many people would be out.

[Cannon1]

2006. Part 1. Prime Outlets, Williamsburg VA ran it's first BF where stores opened at midnight. I did'nt see any reason to be there any earlier than 11pm, but wanted to be out of there and in line at CC - 35 mi away - by 1am. Well, since it was their first ever, and even though the county police were out directing traffic, there was a six mile backup! I ended up taking back routes to get parked approx 3/4 mi away from the 1 and only store I wanted to hit (LeCreuset), and was luckily out by 12:15. Being the first time ever for most sales and managerial staff = alot of delays, plus I really truely believe the majority of folks were window shopping! Too much of a good thing, & too many folks knowing about it. Waylayed Plans. Even though it wasn't a 'bait & switch operation, even the best laid plans can really become slow when so many (literally 1,000's) of people and their vehicles show up.

[Rebirth]

No favorite moment in 2006 but I did get what I wanted and that took alot of time.

[cw2857]

Being second in line for a PSP at Wal Mart and the lady in front of me had the Meijers ad to price match. The clerk let us pass the ad down the line and she price matched everyone for the $150 Meijers ad. That was neat. My DH is already talking about our plans for this year. He wants to camp out in our RV in the Wal-Mart lot so that we do not have to drive to the store at 3am. I think I have him hooked.

[EliteABombAZ]

I have 2 experiences from last year... #1. When it got to be about 1 hour before opening, Best Buy came out and started handing out tickets. Some guy got out of his car and started hanging out on the side of the line, toward the front. Me and a couple of other people went straight to the cops that were already there and pointed him out and made him go to the back of the line. Then later in the store, when I was waiting in line to pick up my laptop... I noticed that the same guy was hanging out near the laptop line... and he was staring and my ticket... and other people's laptop ticket. I think he was thinking about snatching them and getting lost in the crowd. So I told all of the people around me to put them in their pockets. Then... right before I get to the clerk to get my laptop, the guy jumps right into the line and tells the clerk that they "skipped him" when they were handing out tickets. I stood behind the guy , pointing and silently mouthing to the clerk, "He's lying. He tried to cut the line." The clerk told him there was nothing he could do. #2. Story... again in the laptop line... I was a little ways back the store was starting to get packed with the people who showed up right before opening... this big tall guy walks up and it yelling to the clerk (who is busy helping another customer), "Hey man, I wanna buy 2 of those laptops." I looked over at him and said, "It's a limit of 1 per person." He said, "OK, my wife is buying one too." Then I replied, "Do you both have tickets?" To which he said, "What tickets?" I said... "Uh... the tickets that they handed out to the people who waited in front of the store ALL NIGHT LONG." He gave me this shocked look and said, "Do you have a ticket then?" I said, "Yes... just one. For the laptop that I am buying." Hey just looked frustrated and walked away. LOL.

[nedsw33]

haha, THATS AWESOME!!! you gotta love when those type of people come up empty-handed! they think they're so smooth and that they'll outsmart everyone else and then end up getting outsmarted themselves. LOVE IT!!!

[stationchief]

Yeah, all those stories about the cheaters thinking they've got the scam of the year and suddenly coming up empty handed just makes me feel soo good inside. I love it when hard work gets rewarded well! Keep the stories commin'!

[DramaQueenLucy]

Last year in the Best Buy line we had been there since 6:00am on Thurs morning then right as the door were about to open here comes a pregnant women trying to convince people that she couldn't be outside all night because of the baby and to please let her in line she insisted that she be allowed to cut everyone else there but the police took notice of the fact that the pillow she had under her shirt had fallen down called her on it and then she left....lol Some people will try anything.

[kselzer]

I went to the Prime Outlets midnight opening last year at Jeffersonville. We didn't really plan to, but we got there about a hour early so we got breakfast and then went over to the mall. We left about 2am and OMG!!!!! we didn't realize how crazy it had gotten on the highway. There were miles and miles of backup, people parking on the berms & grass on the side of the highway and hopping the fence and in the parking lot there was not a bare spot of greenspace left as people just popped over the curb and parked in it. It was the craziest BF I've had yet and I've been doing it about 10 years. It was quite funny to laugh at all the cars getting towed from being parked on the side of the freeway --- like what - they thought they would park there and NOT get towed!?!?

[Rockfordmom]

Every year I wait at Menards before they open and am amazed at the morons that show up 10 minutes before the store opens and even though there is a long line of people that have been waiting they think that they don't have to wait in line so they go & stand by the door and pretend to talk on their phones off to the side until they open the doors and run in as soon as they open the doors, just because they are special and don't have to wait in line.

[cberrytech]

I remember being on the Circuit City website at about 7:00 pm on BF and see that they have a doorbuster laptop in stock. We think, surely not, but it is worth a call. They actually had two and held one for us until we could get there to pick up. Got an amazing deal on a laptop and did not have to wait in line!

[Jennifer0530]

I would have to say my favorite part was meeting a wonderful associate at Walmart. They were bringing items out and some of the associates were unwrapping them and walking away so people would get what they wanted and move on before the 5 a.m. shopping. Well the woman that brought out the boys jeans stayed in front of it and wouldn't let anyone take any off like they are suppose to do, when she seen what was happening with the other clothes we started talking since I was the only person actually waiting like your suppose to. She finally got mad enough after talking to one of the people in charge (because they were not doing anything about people putting stuff in their carts) that she held my place in line with my cart so I could go pick up all the other clothes I wanted and she found the size of jeans I needed for my son and put three pairs on top so all I had to do was pick them up! She made everyone else dig!

[fairydustcrissy]

2 things stick out for me from last year. 1. Another outlet story. Last year was the 1st time I decided to try the Premium Outlet here in Dawsonville. Normally I head out around 3am, but I couldnt sleep so I hit the outlet. Its a whole 5 mins away. Well, it ended up taking me 45 min to get those 4 miles, because traffic was INSANE. Its on teh side of a 4 lane hwy, and people were actually parlked in teh emergency lane. Every side road anywhere around was full of cars too. I figured what the hell, I still had a few hours to kill, so I ventured onward. Boy am I glad I did! Timberland had thier khakis B1G1, and hubby was in dire need of new pants, and Tims are his fave. The line for the Coach store...OMG. They were doing a whopping 10% off, and I swear the line was a mile long. It went thru the courtyard, the length of the mall, and across the parking lot. Madness! LOL. 2. My sisters best friend wanted to go with us. She never went before, so we decided to inv her, even though we figured she would slow us down, lol. She ended up getting more than anyone! She had a blast, and was fun to be around. You never know how people will be when they are fighting traffic after not sleeping lol. But it was great. Shes going back this year, and like 5 other people now want to go lol.

[kbasketcr8r]

What sticks out for me is getting Seasons 1-4 of 24 for 16.00 each. Most of what I bought was in my hands by October. I went mainly for the fun of it last year. This year, my kids are getting out of the toy stage, so I may have to deal with the night-before lines at Best Buy- I will need lappies. God, I love Black Friday. It is better than sex. Almost.

[Cannon1]

2006. Part 2. Ok, so after the Prime Outlet grab-and-go at midnite, I'm off 45miles away to go stand in line at CC. Accross the street at BB, the line started the afternoon before, and pretty much the consensus of at least my friends and family is BB has very limited bargains on hand & trie to suck everyone in, seemed to be the feelings from most at CC at 0230 as well. Well, I'm #3 in line, with my friend and their dau & her BF-doors open at 0530. -0400. The line goes at least 400 people long. -0445. Ticket Story. Tickets are a GREAT IDEA being handed out in order of who's in line. Evidently there's 20 laptops, person who's #21 starts walking up asking if anyone mistakenly grabbed one, and if so is willing to part with their ticket-no volunteers. This 'person now bangs on the the doors till a manager "assists her" to do the same question again!=wasting the managers time, and by now she's got a major attitude. All of us just shook our heads and pretty much agreed, you should've gotten up earlier. -0500. Handicap Story. Let me get to the point, the person was seen accross the street at BB pulling the same stunt by family of folks in line (man, they had their stuff together-walkie talkies and all!). Well, when no one would let *** in line at BB, *** wheeled off, but got noticed when putting their wheelchair in their trunk, *** gave everyone the one-finger-salute, then got in their car (walked without any hint of injury). Tried the same thing with us at CC-but the hard part was until we got let in on the scam, everyone really felt put on the spot and even knocked on the door to see if this person could be let in the store early. -Courtesy. Just wanted to note, just about every other aisle I would say excuse me, or pardon me which beat pushing and shoving. Really was trying some folks patience to be polite, but on BF I really got to practice my manners!

[Cannon1]

2006. Part 3. (final install of this "I've got too much time on my hands this week" series :)" -0520. Bum Rushers. I had never seen this before and if any stores read this, you're asking for trouble if you: 1) do not provide security; & 2) do not cordon off the access to people who legally waited. In this day and age, I'd say at the least your store and cashiers will be out for a miserable time where even the law abiding shoppers will have an axe to grind with you. Nuff Said.... Simply, :10 min prior to the store opening, at least 50 'peckerheads come out of their cars and start ambling up to the doors, they were without a doubt going to break in as soon as CC opened! Now the wild part. The whole nite, there were two plain clothes police, hired off duty, to prevent such a happening. They never identified themselves, but when this occurred they simply walked up, one started sending the crowd on their way, while the other was immediately recognized inside where then the manager came out with 4 more employees who started pointing out violators and stating they'd be barred from entering the store unless they got in line. WAY TO GO CC!!!!

[nedsw33]

haha, good stories Cannon1! I Never get tired of hearing stories about people trying to cheat their way in front of the line and coming away empty handed! One of the small items we got last year were the Harry Potter Movies 1-4 for $5 each from Target. Just a small bargain, but a bargain none the less!! I was able to turn around and sell the 4th one on ebay for somewhere around $15. (That one was only the single disc version, and I wanted the 2-disc version.)

[shopping4my3son]

I usually go by myself but last year my 12 year old son wanted to come with so I let him. We had a blast. He thought it was pretty cool to be able to run in the stores. LOL He even held my hand in Toys R Us (how sweet) LOL He was a little nervous but had fun. He wants to go again this year. Which is fine because now that he's 13 he's taller than I am and can reach things better. At Target we got there about an hour after they opened. We had already been to 3 or 4 stores before Target. We went in to find "The Simpsons Season 8" and was told they were all gone by an employee. We started walking around and ended up finding an entire endcap FULL of them. We also found a copy of "Click" that was misplaced in the cd section and it looked like they were out of that. When we went to check out most of the lines were to the back of the store. So I tried to see which line was moving the fastest at least and saw the lines in the middle checkouts only had a few people in each line because more people were on the far left or right side of the checkouts and not many people in the middle. We went to the middle and checked out in a few minutes. *Target tip: Check the middle checkouts for shorter lines. At Walmart we entered through the doors that are by the merchandise vs. the grocery side and made a round through there but when we went to check out a lot of lines on that side of the store were long. We went down farther closer to the grocery side and were the 2nd people in line. If I remember correctly we did get everything that was on my list. Even some things that were not. I was able to get my 4yo a TMX Elmo at Toys R Us since we were one of the first in the store. I didn't have it on my list because I thought it would be to hard to find. But he was very excited to have Santa bring it for him. I can't wait for this year. Edit to add: We went to Kmart for their Thanksgiving Day sale. Only a few people showed up for this. I had my Walmart ad for the next day with me and asked the manager if I could price match the VSmile and he let me. His words:"We'll do whatever it takes to get business." This Kmart is not doing well at all and I think that's why this one allows price matching. Walmart keeps trying to build a store in this town but people keep getting petitions signed to not allow it. That was the last I heard of Walmart coming about 3 years ago.

[amyers12345]

Mine usually go very smoothly, but I have a few stories. 2003 (I think): DH's 1st BF. I only took him because I wanted a trampoline and knew that it would be too heavy for me to get out of there. I try to convince him to take 2-way radios, but that was too geeky, he'd be alright. So, he stands and stands, and gets the trampoline, while I get everything else. He has it laid across the top of a cart. Instead of listening to me while I designated the meeting place, he pushed it in circles around the store looking for me. I was able to see him, but he couldn't hear or see me. I swear, he walked around, trying to push that huge trampoline through for 2 hours!! 2003: DH swore he'd never go back! 2004: Dh went back, swore he wouldn't again 2005: Dh went back, swore he wouldn't again. In our small town stores, we're always one of the first standing by the pallets. We know just about everyone, so we station each other at the most demanded items and take orders. (I know, some of you don't like that, but remember, we do this at 1:00 am, while most people are still in bed). We knew what would happen with the cabbage patch at WM, so we put the 2 stoutest women there- they are sisters, and they are MEAN! They were to get 13 of them. I look up to see the fighting, and the short one is in the bottom of hte pile, handing them out to her sister. They ended up with all 13, and then some. They gave whatever wasn't spoken for to the next people in line, who definitely couldn't have fought their way out of it. 2006: DH went back and secretly liked it. there was a couple with 6 kids, all under 6, trying to shop about 3 minutes after the plastic was cut. She was pushing the cart, but only one of the kids was in it. The oldest one got about 2 steps behind, and the dad grabbed him and started cussing him for not keeping up. They were dragging the sleepy kids through these masses of people, the babies didn't have a chance. While the dad was cussing the kid for about the 10th time I saw, I 'somehow' lost my footing as I was shoving my cart through the crowd and hit the man square in the gut. What business did they have taking all of those in there? 2007: DH is BEGGING to go.

[nedsw33]

gotta love it when you just KNOW that you've converted someone!!! especially someone who swore it off forever in years past...

[Marcster]

2006 -- Our first stop was OfficeMax. Arrived at 5:55 am in the parking lot. Everything was in stock and more less in order. In and OUT in 10 minutes FLAT! Off to the next store (Staples).

2005 -- Office Depot was our second stop (went to Sam's opening @ 5 am).

We had scoped it out earlier in the week for the 27" Olevia 16:9 LCD TV. Found out that our store was going to have 5 of them.

We were about 30th in line & waited 20 minutes in line in 14 degree temp. I was so sure that they wouldn't have any more 27" widescreen TVs... As it turned out, we grabbed the 3rd ticket in it's little holder in the display. I think everyone was there for the camera deal.

Lady in front of us in line had a camera and the 1 GB SD Card. She got all bent out of shape because she wanted her $75 MIR to be credited on the spot!!! Both the cashier and the manager told her that wasn't going to happen, customer had apparently read just the front of the ad and not the "inside" where it states the conditions of the $75 discount.

So she told 'em they could keep the $&#$&#! camera and the 1 GB SD card. Cashier takes both to hand to the manager to put back on the shelf.

I said loudly.... "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!! If she's not buying the SD card, I will!" (I couldn't find any on the shelf earlier...)

[nedsw33]

haha, looks like you were the 'victim' of perfect timing. couldn't get much more lucky there!

[jarerice]

The thing that sticks out in my head was last year was DH's first BF. We were at Walmart. Got there at 12:30. Got everything we wanted and started searching for everything that was wrapped up. We had 2 buggies full. Well I did. I was pushing one and pulling the other through all of those people. I lost Dh, he was getting the 68.00 Tv for out bedroom. I must have looked like a mad person, all 110 pounds of me with all that stuff.

[bigjimslade]

My fave BF moments were before and during. I really enjoyed meeting new people on here, making new friends and helping the new people on here. During BF I made two friends in line at BB. I see them several times a month for lunch and dinners.

[hwolf6330]

Last year at walmart I was at a skid waiting to get my ds his 20" t.v. I was getting more and more nervous as the time was getting closer. I kept my hand on one of the boxes, when they said okay, I just grabbed a box. Well, thank God someone had their cart against the skid because I didn't realize how heavy it was . By the time I turned around and put it in my cart the whole skid was gone. I kept my hand on it at all times while finishing up my shopping. I seen someone who got hers swiped out of her cart. That wasn't going to happen to me. I love BF, but some people have to be so rude sometimes. If I see someone getting out of hand and being nasty, I tell them about it. I had someone grab my cart and shove it out of her way. I had nowhere to go in those crowds. I just said " fa-la-la-la to you too b***h!" I say if you don't have a sense of humor and are grouchy, stay home!