Let’s hope no one dies or is injured this Black Friday…
25 Nov 2009
Another reason to not participate in what has become the madness of Black Friday, WTOL reports, Stores may have less inventory of Black Friday door busters, which means your chances of waiting for hours for that “really great deal” is even less now which will increase the pushing, shoving and totally crazy behavior of some who want to save a few bucks on a laptop or a plasma tv…
For those of you planning to shop? Be careful out there and be nice to the employees, it’s not their fault if something is not in stock.
LisaRenee, I hope that you and your family have a very happy Thanksgiving. And thanks for all you do to keep this Blog a lively place for debate and the exchange of different points of view.
November 26th, 2009 at 7:39 amNot planning on doing black friday this year.
It was always fun waiting at our 24 hr Walmart for them to take off the brown wrappers for the door busters. AS it got close to s 6 a.m. the staff would start to back off and you could smell the fear.
November 26th, 2009 at 8:23 amNot planning on doing black friday this year.
It was always fun waiting at our 24 hr Walmart for them to take off the brown wrappers for the door busters. AS it got close to s 6 a.m. the staff would start to back off and you could smell the fear.
November 26th, 2009 at 8:23 amWill it really be a “Black Friday’
November 26th, 2009 at 8:36 amor will it turn out to be an “In the Red” Friday??
I’ve been in the retail world for many years and can tell you that the company I work for as well as most all the others have “reduced” inventory this year. Many of the “Door-busters, Early Bird Specials and so on are in limited quantities. However, there are many great deals to be had and there’s a grand assortment to chose from.
The economy plays the paramount role in what is on hand for events like “Black Friday”. Last year most retail business lost big on high end giftables and many were forced to take heavy losses in “seasonal” items. There will be fewer of those types of items on hand, however most companies have kept suppliers on “open to buy” status so that should sales Friday be stronger than expected that the items will be brought in before Christmas to meet demand.
Some advice from a seasoned pro…keep these things in mind:
All Stores have reduced staffing as a result of a slow sales year and those that are employed have worked very, very hard to make the shopping experience satisfying.
Be patient, kind and understand that the sales staff have zero control over the inventory of stores. Company Execs and Buyers in corporate offices make the supply decisions months and years in advance, purchases are often made 18 months or more in advance of a “season” and that essentially means that once the season is under way, there’s little that anyone can do to replenish limited items.
All stores I know of have game plans in place and special arrangements made to accommodate the public on Friday. When you arrive, follow the direction given and remember that you are only 1 of thousands out shopping. If you follow that plan, your experience will be more satisfying.
While lines may look daunting, my store can move 500 + people through the checkouts an hour if everyone follows the routing and remains calm and patient. It’s when people get all bitchy and start complaining that things get slowed down.
When shopping you’ll save yourself time if you make sure everything you grab has a barcode for scanning, price checks can take time, especially when there’s hundreds of people at one time. If the item you want is for example a size 8, but it’s missing it’s tag, take another 1 like it in another size and the sales staff can often use that ticket to extract the right ticket at the point of sale.
As a side note, it’s the public, not the staff that trashes a store, so if things are messy, that falls on the shoppers. The staff does it’s best to refold and restore order to the sales floor, but there’s no way to keep up with the volume of public on Black Friday. Take it in stride, you’ll be happier.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! and enjoy the madness that is after thanksgiving shopping
November 26th, 2009 at 9:28 amGood luck, People are people, there are still gonna be RAGE SHOPPERS! Couldnt believe hardy anyone at Krogers this Am, early and the rude people. I just smiled and said have a nice Thanksgiving.
November 26th, 2009 at 10:18 amI usually avoid the stores before noon on Black Friday. It’s just not worth it to me and I really don’t like to shop all that much anyway.
Heard there was some kind of confrontation at one of the Best Buys today. Didn’t catch any of the details, though.
November 27th, 2009 at 11:50 amOne of my daughter’s friends said there were problems at the Best Buy she was at and a fight at Menards.
November 27th, 2009 at 11:54 amWTVG is reporting Unruly shoppers at Toys R Us.
Tsk Tsk guys at a children’s toy store?
November 27th, 2009 at 12:24 pmI was at the Toys R Us in from of Northtowne, and did not witness any problem incidents.
There were hundreds of people in line to get in – the line stretched down the sidewalk on Alexis, and all the way back up into the Northtowne parking lot. Had to be *at least* 400 people in line.
We were close enough to the front of the line to get tickets for the limited quantity items that we’d hoped to purchase. By the time we did the rest of our shopping and checked out, it was 2:30 am. Long checkout line, but people were well behaved and orderly for the most part.
Also, I thought that store management implemented a great plan assist with crowd control when entering the store. Tickets were passed out in line prior to the store opening for the limited quantity items.
Once the doors opened, they let 10 people in the door at a time. After those 10 people grabbed carts, then the next 10 people entered. It moved quickly, and prevented any major pileups while people were entering/grabbing carts.
All in all, I’d say that the Alexis Rd Toys R Us did a good job of managing the crowd and keeping things progressing as well as possible (given the size of the crowd).
November 27th, 2009 at 4:16 pmThe problems at the Toys R Us was at the Reynolds Road location from what WTVG reported.
November 27th, 2009 at 4:19 pmAh – I’ve been having minor issues with video on our computer recently, so I couldn’t see which store it was.
I’m not sure if the extra steps the Northtowne staff took were company wide, or just a store specific managment decision.
They handed out a typewritten sheet of rules/procedures for the evening about an hour before the doors opened. But, it was just copied on white paper, not Toys R Us letterhead. Perhaps they just have a smart manager at the Northtowne location!
Once the line started to get huge and wrap all the way back to the Northtowne parking lot, I was actually expecting to hear about incidents. But I didn’t hear or witness anything. I also knew people way back further in the line, and they didn’t see any problems earlier.
Maybe the Northtowne staff could give the other stores some pointers for next year.
November 27th, 2009 at 4:42 pmOr maybe a few at the Reynolds location didn’t want to cooperate with the rules. I agree though if the rules were not chain wide, that might be something worth looking into.
The Blade is reporting cars were broken into at the Monroe street location. WTOL has that story too. In that case though, Toledo police did catch at least one person, though a few got away they did recover some of the stolen gifts.
November 27th, 2009 at 4:50 pmFOX Toledo had a bit of pushing and shoving at the Monroe Street location.
But so far? Nothing I’ve seen as far as major injuries or deaths like the past two years.
November 27th, 2009 at 7:56 pmMy brother was at the Walmart on Central 12 hours in advance, and heard of some fights breaking out as it got closer to the deals becoming available.
It’s a 24 hour store, but had to wait in lines til 5 to get the deals.
November 27th, 2009 at 10:06 pmMy store was very, very busy, but all the folks were well behaved and orderly…was present by comparison to last year.
Of note, while there were many shoppers and we had strong sales, the items per customer seemed to be fewer and more direct..less random. Not a lotta over indulgence. A conservative year thus far.
The Walmart on 20 had several Police cars on site and seems as though the folks there were riled as Tom says by being open24 hrs but not able to cash out till 5am. Heard a lotta complaints about that policy. Also heard via customers that Target was a terrible experience?
Seems to me that the places that had less happy shoppers were the places that either failed to have a good plan in place or were unable to maintain the plan. My store for example, had a routing plan that included only opening a single door, and a tight formation of the single file line through the door and past the registers as well as line ropes and line monitors for the registers. I think the longest wait in line time was 30 minutes at the peek…so an average of 15-20 minutes per person to checkout.
Nearly all the employees at my store worked a 12-14 hr day yesterday…so we’re all exausted
November 28th, 2009 at 7:13 am