Black Friday sales are supposed to generate excitement and get big crowds to show up at stores before dawn on the day after Thanksgiving, luring customers with incredibly low prices for limited quantities of name-brand merchandise — in hopes those shoppers will buy other, profitable items.
So, why would a California Wal-Mart hand out advance tickets to allow purchase of a $198 laptop — not bothering to warn people lined up at the door before 5 a.m. that there wouldn’t be any of the super-cheap units left for them?
TRACY, CA — Black Friday customers who arrived at the Wal-Mart store here, expecting to purchase an e-Machines laptop for the $198 Black Friday price, were surprised to find the entire shipment of 37 units had been assigned to other customers the day before.
A store manager admitted that the only way for a customer to know that tickets allowing later purchase of the machines were being distributed early would have been to call the store and ask.
. . .The Wal-Mart manager, named Mark, said other tech products had been presold in the same way as well, but did not elaborate.
Was the store’s management acting on some perverse desire to provoke a riot or are they so dense that they thought no one would care? The mind boggles.
This unbelievably stupid practice is offensive enough to enrage people who weren’t even shopping for a bargain laptop. It’s enough to ruin any good will and desire to shop at Wal-Mart that a big round of loss-leader sales might have generated
But note that the story says Best Buy and some other retailer have used the same lame tactic.
This kind of ripoff is especially wrong at a time when so many millions of Americans are without jobs, or adequate jobs, that they’re hurting. Many are struggling with limited budgets that make it difficult to afford Christmas gifts at all, even at deeply discounted prices.
Maybe Wal-Mart, Best Buy and other giant retailers doing Black Friday sales should hold early morning drawings for loss leaders, like the chance to buy a $198 laptop.
Those big retailers would definitely be wise to hire a better grade of store managers — ones with a basic sense of fairness and some appreciation that their customers are human beings who deserve to be treated decently.
Happy holidays, manager Mark. Now go soak your head.
You know, that kind of bullshit really is just playing with fire. It would have been safer to do what other retailers have done before. If they know they have 200 machines, and 2 hours before they open they have 2,000 people in line with 300 of them waiting for one particular item, with lurkers waiting on the fringes for a chance to cut in line at the front and bust through the doors as soon as they open, hand out coupons 30 minutes before store opening to those at the front of the line, who are most likely to get that merchandise anyway. I heard that a ToysRus here in VA did that last year when they had 25 wii games to sell, and had 2000 people in line. That cut down on the possibility for violence because line-cutters wouldn’t be able to get one anyway, but was still fair to those who got in line early hoping to score one for their kids.
I did a little black friday early shopping. I was up anyway, and I kind of enjoy it. I go to Home Depot for batteries and flashlights – that kind of stuff. I don’t go for electronics, because most of the “doorbuster” stuff is total crap to begin with and might last a week if you’re lucky. However, for people who are living on the total edge, and could use a $200 laptop that will be perfectly fine for their teenager to use (and they all need a computer for schoolwork now), this was kind of…really, very shitty, of Walmart to pull. Big surprise, though, it’s walmart.
Maybe stores like WalMart and Best Buy need to just stop doing the early morning openings. How did this stuff get started, anyway? I seem to remember it all started with the cabbage patch dolls back in the 80′s.
Bee, my idea is similar to the coupon thing: During the hour before opening, send employees out with lottery-type tickets for various featured items like the cheap laptops. They ask for a show of hands from people hoping to get the laptop. If they have 37 units, they start at the beginning of the line, giving a ticket to anyone with a hand up, until they’ve handed out at least three tickets for each laptop. In the hour after the store opens, they hold drawings for the 37 laptops. Employees do the same for other main advertised items. The one limitation I would make is that any one person could get no more than two tickets. And yes, I know family members could subvert that effort to spread the chances around. But it would still be fairer for all than what that Wal-Mart did to its customers.
I’ve been tempted a time or two but never have shown up at 4 a.m. to line up for one of those bargains. I feel blessed that I can usually spot or scare up a fairly good deal, but don’t have to depend on finding things like a $200 laptop to get by. I’d rather people really in need of a rock-bottom price have a chance.
I think you’re right about these sales starting in the late ’80s or early ’90s when Cabbage Patch dolls were all the rage.
Some stores opened at midnight, so people had to get up before they went to bed. There is nothing like a sale to generate consumer excitement, but it has to be a genuine sale, not one of these fake set-ups.
The giant stores, at this time of year, do over a million dollars a day, it is a strange marketing tactic to entice people with a loss leader on one or two items, when people are going to come anyway. Save tens thousands of dollars on (false) advertising and cut the price of everything.
Holte, you have an interesting suggestion there. I think a store manager or owner would tell you it leaves out the competition factor. I’ve seen department stores in my area advertise 15 percent off storewide, bigger discounts on certain goods. I don’t think it has the same draw as showing a particular, and especially in-demand, product. They want early shoppers to come to their store for that hot item, hoping that since they’re already there, they will shop for other items, before going elsewhere.
S.W.
We were watching the news here Thanksgiving,they interviewed a family waiting in line for the Black Friday shopping at a San Jose Best Buy. The TV guy said “So you guys have been here since Wednesday?” and the man replied ” No we’ve been here since Tuesday. The store lets us in 10 minutes early as a reward”.
I don’t have anything better to do with my time either I guess but there are better ways of wasting time than sitting for days in the cold, plus I don’t have to go to Best Buy.
Really crappy thing for Wal Mart to do, but what else is new.
Welcome, Oso. I can’t imagine sitting in a parking lot for days just to get a bargain. I think you’re right about there being better things to do.
A new low for Wal-Mart (and Best Buy, etc.). And that’s saying a lot.
I don’t do Black Friday myself, but that slippery tactic is definitely playing with fire. It would have served that store manager right if an angry mob took out its anger on him. It could happen, with all the public anguish and fury right now.
Tom, that’s right. It gives the impression the manager or whoever OK’d handing out advance tickets doesn’t have a lick of common sense.
Walmart in Clearlake did the same thing they stayed open all night and handed out the tickets for the laptop. I got there at 3:30 am and was told they were all gone. and I called the store the day before Thanks Giving and asked about the laptops and was told that the store would be open all night but the tickets would not be handed out till 5:00am.