Isn't Black Friday just a gimmick to boost sales?

If you want electronics items. it is hard to beat Black Friday prices. They are what stores refer to as “loss leaders”, meaning that they sell a few things at a loss in order to draw people in to buy things at regular prices.

On the other hand, I am like you. It is not worth it to me to battle the crowds.

Yes.
Happy Thanksgiving,John :)

Black Friday has been around quite a lot longer than internet shopping. Overstock almost never has exactly what I want. Whether the deals are worth it is each person’s individual choice, but sales are beneficial to both consumers and stores.

Lucy, Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.

Yes Black Friday is a retail gimmick. They usually have a limited number of the item (sometimes only 2 or 3) that is listed for a great price. They are not required to have hundreds, so the first few people in line are the lucky ones. Also, if you are not careful, you may not have noticed many of the sale items are dated and the stores are just trying to get rid of them. But if you just insist on getting up early to catch some sales…..have fun:-).

Of course it’s a gimmick. So are Boxing Day/Week sales. The sales after Christmas used to be to get rid of all the excess stock that stores had ordered in for the holidays. Now they order a ton of extra stock for the sales.
That said, I’m happy our dollars are almost par, and I’ll be checking things out online tomorrow.
Happy Thanksgiving to all you Yanks :)

Yes, it’s gimmick.

Mark-up on jewelry is outrageous. Yes $2,500 dollars for $5,000 full retail is normal. Look for $5,000 diamonds for only $1,500 with certs.

As I’ve said before, not only is Black Friday a gimmick, but because some dipshit wants to get a 2nd rate tv for $100 dollars less than normal, some other poor guy has to come in and work on his day off.

It’s gotten out of hand. They are leaving business open 24 hours TODAY or opening and 10pm tonight just to allow shoppers a better chance at some great deals. That means some other poor guy gets to come on in to work after his Thanksgiving dinner and deal with all of the rabid, buy-buy-buy lemmings that march wherever the fucking tv tells them to.

Fuck Black Friday and fuck you Corporate America for turning Thanksgiving into a giant orgy of brainless consumerism.

Black Friday apparently is now taking a back seat to Black and Blue Thanksgiving day….shit times are obviously tough across the board!!

@Blondesjon Exactly ;)

@Cruiser Thanksgiving has been Black and Blue Thanksgiving since the first Thanksgiving. As long as there are family gatherings, there will be bruises.

@papayalily Yep! Bringing extra ice packs just for the occasion! ;)

The Black Friday phenom started after businesses realized that there were alot of shoppers. Back in the day, when I was a kid, the only thing to ‘do’ with the female relatives and kids was to go shop. There were five ladies in the house the day after Thanksgiving, with nothing to do. So they shopped. Back then there were no sales and hardly any stores open. But they took us kids and left the house early, did lunch somewhere, and loved it.
When you had out of town relatives for several days, they needed to do something. The men where usually watching sports, fixing someones car out front, and drinking beer.
The businesses realized that was the biggest day and have jumped on what we were doing anyway, and turned it into something gross.
But it didn’t used to be this way.
The friday after Thanksgiving used to be a day of families bonding over shopping. The ladies wore full makeup and dress including gloves and hat/head scarf. It was way different than people getting into a scrap over a discounted tv.

Yes, of course, just all kinds of holiday hype is. The retailers know that customers will come in hopes of snagging the bargain, but also be willing to spend money on other items as well. The merchandise is displayed according to their research on how to sell it.

Merchandise experts actually film the shopper and base conclusions on sales techniques based on watching their eyes and body language.