Two Black Friday Notes (and One Cyber Monday Preview)
Posted on November 25, 2011 Posted by John Scalzi 10 Comments
They are:
1. Remember that you may order my books from Jay and Mary’s Book Center, my local independent bookstore, and I will sign them and send them to you for the holidays. All the details are here.
2. Canadians, remember that Bakka Phoenix books has signed books of mine for sale. But hurry because apparently they are blowing through their stock very quickly.
3. The folks at Chicon 7, next year’s Worldcon, wish me to inform you that next Monday (which is Cyber Monday, the day all the e-stores do their big deals), they will be offering a $15 discount to attending memberships and $30 discount to family memberships bought through the website. So that’s something to look forward to. I’ll remind you again on Monday.
Also, if you’re out there in the Black Friday shopping scrum today, please be careful, there are a lot of idiots out there. Try to avoid them, and please please please don’t be one. Thank you.
Yeah. And no pepper spraying other shoppers so you can get to the cheesy electronics first!
Black Friday for me consists of a computer with my American Express card taped to the moniter. No parking, no germ ridden crowds, free shipping on most sites today and the added bonus that everything will be delivered to my office. Oh and I can spend the day in my pajamas if I feel like it :-)
according to a bbc article, HALF of the american population will go shopping this weekend. think I will be in the half that stays home. christmas is going to be thinner than usual at our house yhis year.
When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. ;-)
After seeing news reports of people lining up starting yesterday afternoon and hearing about the yearly craziness; I tried to think of anything that would get me out into those mobs. Couldn’t come up with a single reason—no way am I going to sacrifice my day off, my safety, and my sanity to buy some object neither I nor anyone else really needs.
Like Greg, Christmas at my house may be a little thinner this year—I’m not going further into debt just to buy useless stuff.
Today was pie-eating and catch-up-on-reading day for me. Tomorrow I will participate in SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY, and get some things for family and friends from local, independently owned stores. Mostly books, but I will buy locally roasted coffee, tea, a few gift certificates, and the local lawn & garden store that has lots of cool, locally made bird feeders.
Holy cow. A shooting. some tasering. pepper spray. all for the season of GIVING???
At least there were no stampedes this year where people died. (I haven’t seen any stampedes on the news anyways.)
Stores opening earlier and earlier trying to get customers before the competition turns into an “arms race” game theory scenario. you open at 8 am. Your competition opens at 7 am. So you open at 4 am.
Stores having “while supplies last” specials only amplifies that because whatever time the store opens, that’s when you want to get their to get the deal because they only have 3 of those gigantic LED TV’s in stock, and when they’re gone, it works as a “bait and switch” for the remaining customers. Oh, no, we don’t have the 100 inch TV for one hundred dollars. but we’ve got this 36 inch guy for a grand.
I’m seriously starting to get the impression that opening hours should be restricted so that if you open at 4 am, you have to open at 4 am for the entire month, rather than feeding into this insane 1-day shopping frenzy.
That, and I’m getting the impression that “while supplies last” really ought to be mandated to be changed to “during this day as long as you show up physically in the store on that day”. So that it isn’t used as a bait and switch tactic. And if they run out of product in the store, they have to give you some kind of voucher for that product for the sales price.
This is just nuts.
Whoah whoah whoah. When did thanksgiving become the big awesome movie opening day?
This is from Rotten Tomatoes:
97% The Muppets Nov 23
97% Hugo Nov 23
91% Arthur Christmas Nov 23
81% A Dangerous Method Nov 23
82% My Week with Marilyn Nov 23
97% The Artist Nov 25
74% Rampart Nov 23
Six fricken movies opened on thanksgiving that had 80% or better tomato rating????
according to a bbc article, HALF of the american population will go shopping this weekend
But how many go shopping on any weekend, and how many on any weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas? I mean, if I run out to pick up cat food today I certainly ‘went shopping on Black Friday’, and if I brought an infant along that’s another data point of people who went shopping, but that’s not exactly the same as being part of a bargain-hunting surge.
Wikipedia says: “In 2003, however, Black Friday actually was the busiest shopping day of the year, and it has retained that position every year since except 2004, when it ranked second.[1]”
Tried clicking on the source link, but couldn’t find the article.
Somewhere else, I’ve heard that the 30 days or so from Black Friday to Christmas accounts for 25 to 40% of many retailer’s sales. Tried googling for that tidbit, but couldn’t find it. But I’ve heard statements like that many times. Even if it’s only 25%, that’s still 25% of sales in 8% of the days in a year.
I think it is safe to say that there is an objectively measurable increase in the number of shoppers on black friday and leading up to christmas as compared to the rest of the year.