Thread: Black Friday needs to die a slow, painful death.

I fail to see what most of the hubbub about Black Friday is all about. Stores keep their ultra-top secret Black Friday sales flyers hidden until Thanksgiving (by "hidden" I mean that you have to search more than two minutes to find them online), and then stock only a handful of the big ticket items. Foolish Kool-Aid drinkers (my wife is one of them) then wait for hours on end for a chance to save 50% or more. Stores try to salvage shoppers' dignity by issuing tickets and the like (hence trying to avoid the bum rush for the electronics section) but inevitably ignorant shoppers make the news when they trample over one another for that 80-inch plasma/LED TV they gotta have. They couldn't afford it at $3,000 and really can't afford to pay the sale price of $19.99, but that TV is suddenly a necessity.

Some of the lesser advertised sales are worth going to later in the day, when the crowd dies down, but I've consistently pissed off the wife by refusing to plan my day around the sales. Even the internet sales are hardly worth staying up till midnight and dealing with overloaded websites in hopes of checking out before everything is sold out or the website crashes. My wife doesn't see it my way, but if I wait in line for three hours to save $50 I just lost another $70.

In short, I guess I can understand your ire at having "Black Friday" advertisements thrown in your face year round.

Originally Posted by coqauvin

Even better, a lot of retailers order shitty products specifically to advertise and sell at sale prices for high-volume sale days.

Sometimes you can luck out with these special offer deals. For example, I got a 16 gallon wet/dry vac at Home Depot a couple of years ago for $49. Regular models sell for $100+. The main difference is the $49 one is a little less powerful (though still more than adequate for my needs, and well worth the price tag). But yeah, usually the "best" deals look better in the box. The model or submodel on sale is probably a little different than the regular model, even if it looks the same.