Does Black Friday really have lowered prices?

Question

do the stores ctaually have good deals + lowered prices? or is it just that everyone decides to go shopping?

Answer 1

the stores do actually have lower prices, but usually only in the early hours (like 6am-8am for example)---you have to shop real early to see any kind of savings

Answer 2

The stores will have special prices that are usually a really good deal. The problem is...if its a popular item, they may only have a limited quantity to sell, plus most of the stores open the doors at some ridiculous early hour and there will thousands of people waiting to get in the 20 things they have for sale.

Answer 3

Yeah, most retail stores will offer really good deals on things, but they're typically limited and only to draw a crowd into the store. I used to work for an electronics dealer. Last black Friday, we sold a DVD player for $20. That was to get people into the store so we could talk to them about DVD players that will work longer than six months or to sell them cables to get the best performance, etc etc. Of course, there are a lot of people that buy things just because they're cheap. These deals usually only last for a short time, either until the store runs out of stock (stores never to rain checks on these deals) or until a specific time (usually around noon or one). But to asnwer your question, yes there are some really good deals available on the day after Thanksgiving.

Answer 4

stores really do have lowered, or valuable prices. many things on sale for Black Friday are pretty much a, first come, first serve kind of deals. so you should get to these stores early. if you choose later to go, you maybe out of luck.

happy hunting. save me a place in line, i'll be joining you all on Friday.

Answer 5

yes lots of places do indeed have price drops like amazon.com has the xbox 360 on friday for 100 dollars instead of the usual 300 dollars

Answer 6

YES, all stores have really good deals with lowered prices on Black Friday. And because of that everyone ends up shopping.

BLACK FRIDAY (SHOPPING) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_Sale
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States, is historically one of the busiest retail shopping days of the year. Many consider it the "official" beginning to the holiday season. Most retailers will open very early and usually provide massive discounts on their products.

Although Black Friday is typically the busiest shopping day of the year in terms of customer traffic, it is not typically the day with the highest sales volume. That is usually either Christmas Eve or the last Saturday before Christmas.

Origin

The first use of this term to describe the day after Thanksgiving is not exactly known. There are two popular theories as to its origin.

Accounting practice

One theory is that stores traditionally operated at a financial loss for most of the year (January through November) and made their profit during the holiday season. When this would be recorded in the financial records, common accounting practices use red ink to show negative amounts and black ink would show positive amounts. Black Friday is the beginning of the period where they would no longer have losses (the red) and instead take in the year's profits (the black).

Stress from large crowds

Another theory comes from the fact that shopping experience on this day can be extremely stressful. The term is used as a comparison to the extremely stressful and chaotic experience of Black Thursday or other black days. According to The Word Spy:

Earliest Citation:
Christmas decorations around Tampa Bay started going up in late October, and business has been brisk since then. And while Friday--known as Black Friday for the legendary hordes--will be the biggest shopping day for many area stores, others ring up the greatest sales the Saturday before Christmas.
—Marilyn Marks, "Retailers expect good sales this Christmas," St. Petersburg Times, November 27, 1986

There exists an earlier reference, speaking to the Friday after Thanksgiving:

A BLACK FRIDAY.
There have been many Black Fridays in recent history. Most of them have been days of financial panic. There has been none of blacker foreboding than last Friday. And the blackness is not loss or fear of loss in stocks and bonds.
New York Times (1857-Current file).
New York, N.Y.: Dec 3, 1922. pg. 38, 1 pgs
ISSN/ISBN 03624331

Employees of retail stores have for years referred to Black Friday in a satirical way, to note the extremely stressful and hectic nature of the day. Heavy traffic and customer demands added to the long hours make it a difficult day.


Black Friday on the Internet

Advertisements in advance

Certain websites such as DealTaker.com offer information about Black Friday deals up to a month in advance. The text listings of prices are usually accompanied by adscans -- complete PDFs either leaked by insiders, or intentionally released by large retailers to give consumers insight and allow them time to plan.

Cyber Monday

The term Cyber Monday refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday, which unofficially marks the beginning of the holiday online shopping season.

In recent years, Cyber Monday has become a busy day for online retailers, with some sites offering low prices and other promotions on that day.

Controversy

Response (Buy Nothing Day)

Anti-consumer frenzy protesters have chosen this day as Buy Nothing Day in North America, where those concerned about the increasing power and influence of consumer corporations are urged to not make consumer purchases.

DMCA

In recent years, some retailers (including Wal-Mart, Target Corporation, Best Buy, and Staples, Inc.) have claimed that the advertisements they send in advance of Black Friday and the prices included in those advertisement are intellectual property and protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Using the take down provision of the DMCA, these retailers have threatened various internet web sites who post Black Friday prices to the internet in advance of the intended release date by the retailers. This policy apparently derives from a fear that competitors, in addition to customers, will also have access to this information and use it for competitive advantage. The actual validity of the claim that prices are protected intellectual property is uncertain as prices might be considered a 'fact' in which case they would not receive the same level of protection as pure intellectual property.

The benefit of threatening internet sites with a DMCA based lawsuit has proved tenuous at best. While some sites have complied with the requests, others have either ignored the threats or simply continued to post the information under the name of a similar sounding fictional retailer.

Answer 7

Some stores offer a few bargain items, but they're generally the same thing year after year.

Answer 8

Sometimes.

And then you have the stores that mark up before the mark down so they do not loose anything on the sales.

Why fight the crowds?

Answer 9

See for yourself.

http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/

To me, it's not worth braving the crowds.

Answer 10

no,its true.everything is cheaper for that one day a year.last year my brother in law got a $900.00 computer for $300.00.