Black Friday 2011: My Shopping Report and a WINNER

First off I would like to announce the winner of Cathy's Birthday Blog Hop. The winner is #37 which is Simply Pam. Simply Pam said:

Love this card Glora! It is super fun. LOVE the papers you used, adds design and texture but not over much. :)

Pam

Congratulations Pam!

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NOW HERE is my fun BLACK FRIDAY STORY...


I was crazy. I went shopping at a "Black Friday" sale at my local Roberts craft store.

For those of you outside the United States who are lucky enough not to have such traditions, Black Friday follows Thanksgiving Thursday, and it is supposed to be the biggest shopping day of the year. It is the day that puts retailers "in the black."

On this day, many stores open at insanely early hours, and use "loss leaders" and special sale pricing to lure shoppers out of bed and into their cash register lines.

The Roberts advertisement showed, among their sale items, that Cricut cartridges would be $10 each. They even pictured some popular cartridges which appealed to me. Doors opened at a reasonable 6:00 am ("reasonable" when compared to most other stores).

So I set my alarm to wake me up early, and joined the line of customers outside their store. When I arrived about a half hour early, I was about the 25th in line, and many more joined me afterward.

At 6:00 am the doors opened, and it became very clear that everyone in the line wanted the same sale item. The line simply flowed into the store and followed to the Cricut cartridge display.

All the cartridges were against a wall in one location at the front of the store. The press of the crowd flowed that direction also. By the time I got my turn at the display, I found myself at the rack of cartridges, trapped by a mass of people behind me, other shoppers to each side of me, and a wall of cartridges in front of me.
The mass of humanity behind me was growing impatient, and slowly the back of the line was pushing faster and farther, threatening to smash or impale people like me who were trapped with nowhere to go.

I grabbed several cartridges, no time to think about what they were or what I really wanted (other than the fact that they were cartridges that I didn't currently own). All I could tell for certain was that the cartridges they pictured in the advertisement were not on the rack. Apparently they forgot to print "Selection may vary by store."

Being stuck and only able to reach a portion of the wall, I asked people to pass me this or that cartridge which was out of my reach. Sometimes they were helpful and handed it over, but other times they were only looking out for themselves. Unable to move, I asked people behind me what cartridges they would like and began handing them back. I secretly hoped to relieve some of the crowd behind me so I could make an escape, but instead it only angered people who thought I was dawdling.

There were certainly some cartridges I could see but not reach, and there was an entire rack of "SpongeBob" carts that nobody wanted. When I finally could make a break, I took my selections to the checkout. The press around the cartridges was just about right to let one person out at a time, and people were heading straight to the checkout and then leaving the store. Thus, the majority of the store was completely empty.

Now I'm not a business woman, but maybe next year they should think about spreading the sale merchandise throughout the store. If those cartridges would have been scattered about, people would have to explore the store, and maybe see other items that they wanted to buy. As it was, people were only buying cartridges and the store made no profit.

And maybe next year I'll think harder about whether the sale is worth losing sleep over.

Here is what I ended up with:

- Freshly Picked
- Fabulous Finds
- Give a Hoot
- Graphically Speaking
- Pagoda
- Printing 101
- Spring Holiday Cards
- Tie the Knot

In the comments, tell me what your best "Black Friday" find was!