Every year, I wonder what Thanksgiving is all about. I take a look at Wikipedia, understand what it's all about and then the following year, take a look at the same article again. This year, I did the same. But, at the start of every year, when the list of holidays is released by the HR department, you will find it hard to miss that you're getting four days off in the last week of November. The Friday that follows the Thanksgiving Thursday is referred to as the Black Friday, which is a massive day for shopping. This is the day when the retailers give you a big discount by bumping up the prices beforehand. OK, some of the items are actually dirt cheap, but most of them are such that they can be purchased at any time of the year.
The US is filled with deals and promotions almost all year round. Thanksgiving weekend is just another excuse to shell out money for products that you actually did not know you required. Before the Thanksgiving weekend, you have promos saying why you should buy something. During the Thanksgiving weekend, you have more promos saying why you should buy something that you already have purchased before and the reason offered being that the products are available at so called throwaway prices. After Thanksgiving, you will have more promos asking you to buy more stuff that can be obtained at Thanksgiving prices. So, basically, the whole US market is running in some kind of a chain reaction. If the sales are down at any given point, Wall street guys shout out that consumer confidence is shrinking and the US economy is headed for a recession. Phew!
Anyway, my wife, who was relatively new to the Thanksgiving experience, wanted to experience first hand the pleasure of shopping on a Black Friday. So, last year, we made extensive plans to target specific stores and wait in front of the big stores well before midnight. That was the year we made our foray into gaming thanks to the Xbox and Kinect Experience. We were looking at some of the Kinect games. There was a Black Friday offer from Old Navy that the first few customers will be given a free copy of the Dance Central DVD (normal price is around 40$) with the purchase of anything from the store. So, we went and stood at about 10:30 or 11:00 PM in front of the Old Navy store at virtually sub zero temperatures. It was freezing. It was like hell. But, you know, all this is a part of the experience. We counted the number of guys who were ahead of us. Almost everybody was there to get the free DVD. There were about 20 guys in front of us. So, we waited patiently, and as the store opened at midnight, everyone who entered the store were given the free copy of Dance Central. We were really excited. But, somehow, as our turn came by, we were told that the guy ahead of us had got the last copy. We were absolutely gutted. What Sachin Tendulkar felt today after missing out his 100th century is nothing compared to what we felt when we couldn't get that free DVD. Anyway, we walked in and my wife picked up a jacket, rather, half-heartedly. We headed back home and explained our misfortune to our friends. Also, we didn't feel too good about the jacket.
There was an offer from Target with a special price for Xbox. Also, Target was offering a lot of discounts on toasters, mixers, blenders and what not. We thought that the Xbox was a pretty good deal. But, since we had already ordered ours online, we didn't deem it a good idea to stay in overnight lines at freezing temperatures(thankfully!). So, the next morning, after checking out a mall, as we were heading home, we entered one of the Target stores. We went to the aisle where the Xbox boxes were kept. I was surprised to find plenty of them. Then, we walked to the aisle where the toasters that were sold for 5$ were kept. There was not even a single toaster. We asked the store attendant who was passing by as to whether the store had any toasters left. He had a huge grin, "Oh, sorry sir. You know these toasters were sold out in like five minutes at 5 AM in the morning." He was filled with pride. We thought they must have been some extraordinary toasters to have sold out so quickly. We didn't find anything useful. We went back home and had a sound sleep.
After the Thanksgiving mania had died down, we went to Target for our weekly shopping. This time, we were able to find the toaster. There were plenty of them. We saw the price. We couldn't suppress our laughter. The toasters were marked at a price point of 6.99$. We wondered how people could stay overnight braving freezing temperatures to save 1.99$ on a toaster. Life can be totally mysterious.
Here comes the clincher. Then, we went to the Old Navy store. My wife was somehow not too happy with her jacket. She felt that it would have been a great purchase had we got the game DVD. I seemed to agree with her. What else choice did a married man have, but to agree to his wife. We walked into the store to see if we could find other jackets to her liking. We saw the exact jacket that we were holding in our hand. The price had dropped by a further 15$. There was no way in the world that we would be keeping that jacket with us now. We spoke to the lady at the counter and told her how we didn't like the jacket. We also told her about how the price was lesser than the Black Friday price. Thanks to the US store policies, we got a refund on our purchase. But, standing in front of the Old Navy store on a cold wintry night to get a jacket at a price that would go down by 15$ in the subsequent week was totally, totally not cool.
And, that's our awesome Thanksgiving experience.
It is ten minutes to midnight. The Black Friday fever is gripping the town. I am going to bed.
The US is filled with deals and promotions almost all year round. Thanksgiving weekend is just another excuse to shell out money for products that you actually did not know you required. Before the Thanksgiving weekend, you have promos saying why you should buy something. During the Thanksgiving weekend, you have more promos saying why you should buy something that you already have purchased before and the reason offered being that the products are available at so called throwaway prices. After Thanksgiving, you will have more promos asking you to buy more stuff that can be obtained at Thanksgiving prices. So, basically, the whole US market is running in some kind of a chain reaction. If the sales are down at any given point, Wall street guys shout out that consumer confidence is shrinking and the US economy is headed for a recession. Phew!
Anyway, my wife, who was relatively new to the Thanksgiving experience, wanted to experience first hand the pleasure of shopping on a Black Friday. So, last year, we made extensive plans to target specific stores and wait in front of the big stores well before midnight. That was the year we made our foray into gaming thanks to the Xbox and Kinect Experience. We were looking at some of the Kinect games. There was a Black Friday offer from Old Navy that the first few customers will be given a free copy of the Dance Central DVD (normal price is around 40$) with the purchase of anything from the store. So, we went and stood at about 10:30 or 11:00 PM in front of the Old Navy store at virtually sub zero temperatures. It was freezing. It was like hell. But, you know, all this is a part of the experience. We counted the number of guys who were ahead of us. Almost everybody was there to get the free DVD. There were about 20 guys in front of us. So, we waited patiently, and as the store opened at midnight, everyone who entered the store were given the free copy of Dance Central. We were really excited. But, somehow, as our turn came by, we were told that the guy ahead of us had got the last copy. We were absolutely gutted. What Sachin Tendulkar felt today after missing out his 100th century is nothing compared to what we felt when we couldn't get that free DVD. Anyway, we walked in and my wife picked up a jacket, rather, half-heartedly. We headed back home and explained our misfortune to our friends. Also, we didn't feel too good about the jacket.
There was an offer from Target with a special price for Xbox. Also, Target was offering a lot of discounts on toasters, mixers, blenders and what not. We thought that the Xbox was a pretty good deal. But, since we had already ordered ours online, we didn't deem it a good idea to stay in overnight lines at freezing temperatures(thankfully!). So, the next morning, after checking out a mall, as we were heading home, we entered one of the Target stores. We went to the aisle where the Xbox boxes were kept. I was surprised to find plenty of them. Then, we walked to the aisle where the toasters that were sold for 5$ were kept. There was not even a single toaster. We asked the store attendant who was passing by as to whether the store had any toasters left. He had a huge grin, "Oh, sorry sir. You know these toasters were sold out in like five minutes at 5 AM in the morning." He was filled with pride. We thought they must have been some extraordinary toasters to have sold out so quickly. We didn't find anything useful. We went back home and had a sound sleep.
After the Thanksgiving mania had died down, we went to Target for our weekly shopping. This time, we were able to find the toaster. There were plenty of them. We saw the price. We couldn't suppress our laughter. The toasters were marked at a price point of 6.99$. We wondered how people could stay overnight braving freezing temperatures to save 1.99$ on a toaster. Life can be totally mysterious.
Here comes the clincher. Then, we went to the Old Navy store. My wife was somehow not too happy with her jacket. She felt that it would have been a great purchase had we got the game DVD. I seemed to agree with her. What else choice did a married man have, but to agree to his wife. We walked into the store to see if we could find other jackets to her liking. We saw the exact jacket that we were holding in our hand. The price had dropped by a further 15$. There was no way in the world that we would be keeping that jacket with us now. We spoke to the lady at the counter and told her how we didn't like the jacket. We also told her about how the price was lesser than the Black Friday price. Thanks to the US store policies, we got a refund on our purchase. But, standing in front of the Old Navy store on a cold wintry night to get a jacket at a price that would go down by 15$ in the subsequent week was totally, totally not cool.
And, that's our awesome Thanksgiving experience.
It is ten minutes to midnight. The Black Friday fever is gripping the town. I am going to bed.
Good one GK. BTW; I daresay you would have got your free copy of Dance Central if you had some pepper spray on you ;)
ReplyDeleteHey Kapil, How are you doing man? :-) Yeah, looks like pepper spray is the way to go :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by.
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