One of the craziest and busiest days for shopping in the U.S. is Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving).
It is called Black Friday because legend has it that retailers start to get into the black from that day.Â
While tis’ true that Indians love a great bargain and will haggle you away to death to get the prices they demand, Americans belong to a different category of bargain hunters.
We haven’t seen Americans (white or black) haggle with the sales reps, but they are the greatest bargain-hunters in the world.
In their eternal, relentless quest for the Holy Grail of low, low prices, none can beat the Americans.
To snag low prices, Americans will clip coupons, drive miles and miles, stand in line for hours, visit NYC on rumors of sales or to buy knockoff/replica purses and bags in the Canal Street area in downtown Manhattan, tirelessly haunt the forums of web sites like TechBargains, Fat Wallet, Deals2buy and SlickDeals and outsource manufacturing/services to Indian and Chinese coolies and then whine about loss of jobs here.
Wal-Mart is the standing example (these days it seems Wal-Mart is the only retailer standing) of the American consumers’ search for low prices.
But it’s the Black Friday sale that separates the men from the boys.
Scouring web sites like Black Friday 2008, BFAds and the like for weeks in advance, Americans arm themselves with all the information and the best upcoming deals in preparation for their assault on Wal-Mart, Macy’s, ToysRus, JC Penney, Target, Best Buy, Office Max, K-Mart, Circuit City et al.
Rain, snow or sleet are piffling challenges to the Black Friday warriors – Fortified with tall cups of hot coffee and clothed in thick jackets, Americans will stand in line from 7:00PM the previous night or even earlier to snap up the great bargains on Black Friday.
Family members split up with each member going to a different store.
They then meet at around 10AM in a parking lot to compare and showoff purchases and share war stories (yes, to average American shoppers, the Black Friday shopping experiences are the real war stories…who cares about Iraq and Afghanistan).
Good Deals
Yes, the Black Friday deals are pretty good compared to everyday prices (several hundred $$$ lower for big ticket items) but the quantity is limited.
The stores open at 5AM and the best sales are from 5-11AM. But if you are not among the first 50, you are unlikely to get what you want.
This year, the Black Friday deals are likely to be better than usual because of the depressed economy.
Our prediction for the hot items this Black Friday are Blu-ray players, 50-inch LCD/Plasma TVs, Laptops and digital cameras.
Our Black Friday Experience
Many years back, we decided to join the early morning Black Friday hordes at the local Best Buy.
So we left home at around 4:00 AM with a tall cup of Coffee (home-made, we desis are kanjoos cheapos) thinking we’d be early.
Guess what – we were 100 or 125th in line. Way back in the line to get what we wanted (we’ve forgotten what we were pursuing…maybe a second or third laptop or camera…not sure now). We saw only one other desi in the store. The rest were mostly White with a few African-Americans. After that, we never tried it again (in any case we have two or more of most things except for the spouse 🙁 and you can’t get another her/him at a Black Friday sale).
Hey, Good Luck with your Black Friday shopping this year.
Does India have anything at all like Black Friday on a national scale like the U.S?
Black Friday is Coming – Discount Crazy Americans! added by SearchIndia.com on
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Here in the UAE, we have something called Eid Seasonal sales in almost all the shopping malls and supermarkets. They would advertise everywhere and the prices are slashed upto 50% – 75%.
This is the season that most people (Asian’s) especialy wait to make bulk purchases. It includes everything from clothes to electronics & house-hold items. Shopping is really exciting in UAE.
Thanks for your timely reminder..
People get stuff from the black friday sale and sell it on craig’s list for twice the price.. which will still be less than the post-black friday price to people who can’t wait for the next big sale.
we have discounts round the year for various festivals, and end-of-the-financial-year sales, to clear off the unsold….but nothing like what you describe…
SearchIndia.com Responds:
We’ll see if we can post some pictures this year. The Black Friday shopping scenes in the U.S. are unbelievable.
I remember last year’s black friday, I was in CA, in one of the news channels (cnbc i think) a expert was advising people about the predictions of economic problems that are going to come in next year and not to spend too much on black friday….
I didnt think at that time the depression would be this deep…
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: I didnt think at that time the depression would be this deep…
The idiots running this country and the crooks running the corporations are clueless on what to do now. They are just working on a trial-and-error, let’s give this a shot basis.
Very Scary.
Just because someone has a fancy title or makes a lot of money does not mean that he (yes, it’s mostly a he) knows what to do. Case in point is our desi butcher Vikram Pandit.
‘We’ll see if we can post some pictures this year. The Black Friday shopping scenes in the U.S. are unbelievable.’- i suppose it some what resembles the scene outside a theatre in madras running a rajni movie…..
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: i suppose it some what resembles the scene outside a theatre in madras running a rajni movie…..
Nothing in the world can be compared to the scenes outside a theatre in Tamil Nadu on the opening day of a Rajini movie.
As he proved it in Sivaji, Rajini is the Tamil James Gaand. 😀
The closest to a Rajini movie debut in Tamil Nadu is the Halley’s Comet.
BTW, did you know that Rajini is a Marathi from Bangalore and his real name is Sivaji Rao Gaekwad. No kidding.
hmm.. Aditya.. are you really 19 years old… how would know about a Rajini movie in “Madras” (it was changed to “Chennai” when you would have been 7 years old, if you were telling the truth)..
Read in your history books? 😉
Here’s one of my favorite songs..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpRiSb_Ir-s
trey….its IIT Madras, not Chennai….thats why i know…..fyi i never call the city chennai….convinced?
yes , convinced.. you seem to be too worldly-wise for your age 🙂
“BLACK FRIDAY” is a sham! The ones that happen in most stores, esp. Walmart, is the dumping of low-quality electronic items like TV’s, computers, etc. manufactured by “Twiddle-Dum & Twiddle-Dee Inc., USA.” I have rarely found stuff worthy of purchase, save for the rare high-capacity pen-drive for under $10 at Best Buy or Circuit City and I have not been to a Black Friday blowout in about 3 years. Unless someone is selling PS3 and the ‘MGS4’ and ‘Far Cry 2’ games at heavily discounted prices, count me out of this year’s madness.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write: “BLACK FRIDAY” is a sham!
Not true.
In the past, we’ve seen ads for big brand PCs and Toshiba Laptops that were attractively priced.
It also depends on what YOU are looking for.
Some people only want Sony brand LCD while others are happy with Vizio LCD TVs (btw, Vizio is now one of the largest sellers of LCD TVS in the U.S.).
trey, me worldly wise? tell that to my mom ….she thinks i am a fool….
even if I tell that you will be in trouble.. hanging out with perverts talking about booze and boobs.. instead of concentrating on your studies and preparing for a full score(is it still 2400?) in GRE. And what are you doing up at 2 am?
yup,GRE is still 2400 (did you give the exam?)…we have our end semester exams from Monday….so studying for that…we have group study here which goes on for the whole night you see….but then only studies can get boring….so blogging simultaneously…..
yeah, i got 2130.. not great by indian standards, but was enough to send a shudder down the spines of some brilliant chinese and korean students.. they looked at me with awe. GRE and spelling bee are two things in which indians are world beaters.
watching the Eng ODI.. average age of indian team is 23.5!
trey, where did you graduate from?not just the GRE, i have heard that last year a guy from india scored 100% in SAT exams,which btw i think are pretty easy compared to competetive exams here….anyways, the way yuvraaj batted, i don’t see why we need senior players in ODIs anymore…..
aditya.. from MIT 😀
after a long time I watched India bat.. I didn’t even bother to watch England innings – it was 3 am for me, anyway..
I chose the right game to watch..(while SI was wasting time at VA) Raina had 0 4s and 3 6s.. India has one of the best bowling attacks now.. Indian team looks awesome! Hope they will stay so for a long time.. Like the Waughian Aussies.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: I chose the right game to watch..(while SI was wasting time at VA)
The sacrifices we make for the public good and you dare call it wasting time!
MIT???looks likr its my turn to get paranoid…..you graduated from MIT or post-graduated? i thought you did your graduation in india….well well well….we have royalty here…(if you really graduated from MIT that is!!![ 😀 ] )
Hey, don’t laugh at Madras Institute of Technology.. My resume isn’t impressive, so I don’t want to discuss it here 🙂
ok ok, you had me there……i thought you were talking about MIT in the U.S. ….MIT is where my idol APJ Abdul Kalam graduated….i would have probably gone there if i couldn’t get through JEE….
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Our favorite Abdul Kalam quote: Only strength respects strength.
SI – thanks for the sacrifices. guess you are enduring Dostana today.. Or the QoS?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Dostana Review – Perverse Abomination
QoS coming later.