Black Friday sales for MAME builders

[AlanS17]

I did a lot of Christmas shopping at Staples. I picked up a 200GB drive which I'll probably keep for myself, too. I got 2 label printers, a 60GB external drive, a UPS, and a 1GB memory stick.

I also hit up Best Buy and Circuit City. We grabbed a ton of DVD's, an up-converting DVD player, rechargable walkie-talkies, a 1GB MP3 player, a bluetooth headset, and some othet stuff.

All in all, we cleaned out. And we didn't wake up til 6am.

[mmmPeanutButter]

Hit Staples also...

I was happy about the change to the 20" widescreen monitor (the leaked ad showed a 19") so I got that.  Got the 200 GB internal, the DVD burner, the 1 GB flash drive, and the 400 GB external.

I am really happy with the external.  It's a great (physical) size and it just looks really sharp.  Get more than one and put them on your shelf and they kinda look like books (thus, they're called "My Book").

 

[AlanS17]

I am really happy with the external.  It's a great (physical) size and it just looks really sharp.  Get more than one and put them on your shelf and they kinda look like books (thus, they're called "My Book").

I almost got one of those for my brother, but the 60GB was cheaper and it uses a 2.5" drive so it ought to be completely powered through the USB port. The larger ones usually require a seperate power cable. The main reason was that it was cheaper, though.

[my58vw]

Black friday was a total disaster... we got in line at 8pm and there was 90 people in front of us. At 3 am everyone rushed the door - 90 turned into 150 - and of the hard disks, computer, et al... enough tickets for the first 30 only... everything on the 7 hour sale was gone in 30 seconds!

The first people got there at 7am - 22 hours before the store opened - last year I got there at 10 pm - with only 15 people in line...

Reality is - you can get near all the deals online throughout the year - it is not worth it anymore 

[saint]

So we got up at 1 AM and got to Best Buy at 2 AM. The last 5 years, that would have placed us roughly 50th in line, and would have given us an excellent shot at getting all the items we were after (never have missed before, in fact).

This year, at 2 AM, there were roughly 300 people already in line. No chance in Hades at getting what we were after there. Bummer. Don't know why the numbers jumped up like that.

So we headed across the street to Circuit City, and ended up 52nd in line. Not bad. Deals were almost as good as Best Buy, better in a few instances I think, though the computer deal at Best Buy was better.

Had my collapsable sports chairs, multiple layers of clothing on, and a good heavy blanket. Weather wasn't as cold as last year (bloody froze last year) and everyone was in pretty good spirits.  Sent my nephew in my car to McD's at 3:30 to buy us breakfast. Waited until 5 AM for store to open. Only hostile moment was when someone who got a voucher for one of the laptops came back in line to our area and started taking offers on it (in other words, they didn't want it, they just grabbed the voucher to sell it to make a profit). They got $40 for it (so the buyer ended up paying cost of computer + an additional $40). The tense bit was a guy a few spots back from us who pitched a fit about how that wasn't cool and how some people in line had wanted a fair chance at the laptop that this guy was scalping. Kid took his money and beat it quick

Here are the highlights on how we made out:

$3    - 160 DVD-R blanks
$0   - Kids calculator
$200   - Lexmark Printer, E-Machine PC, 17" Monitor, 160 Gig HD, 512 Mb RAM, Windows XP, Vista upgrade
$149   - GPS w/ MP3 playback ability
$2.97   - 1 Gig SD-RAM
$0   - D-Link wireless router
$29.99   - Phillips DVD player
$129   - 19" Flatpanel LCD monitor
$14.99   - 10-mile 2-way radios (2)
$19.98   - 16x Dual Layer, Dual format, internal DVD Drive
$0   - 6 outlet surge protector
$19.98   - 200 gig internal Maxtor HD
$39.99   - Office chair (leather, arm rests -- 4 total)
$115   - Clothes from JC-Pennies (Jeans *3, shirts*3)

All in all, picked up $2500 worth of stuff (retail price) for $850, saving $1700 or so. Of course, $700 of that is rebates I have to wait for now. Still, I have a success rate in the high 90% range of actually getting my rebates.

The monitor, computer, and GPS were for my in-laws and nephew and they paid me for them, so I'm personally only out of pocket some $400 or so for the items I bought.  That doesn't include non-door-buster miscellaneous deals like buy one get one free on deskjet photo paper packs, 10%-20% discounts on various piddly items, etc...

Not a bad day all in all I think, exhausted at the end of it of course. Spent a good chunk of today filling out all my rebates too.

--- saint

[ChadTower]

I didn't make it out, I got a bunch of unannounced houseguests that would have been plenty annoyed if I had gone out shopping.  It never fails.  Really wanted to snag that HD, too, dammit.

[mmmPeanutButter]

Not a bad day all in all I think, exhausted at the end of it of course. Spent a good chunk of today filling out all my rebates too.

I thought I'd be filling out rebate forms all day too, but those Staples "easy rebates" are actually easy.  Just went online, typed in the codes from my receipts, filled in my address and I was done.  No UPC clipping for me.

[stephenp1983]

Did anyone else get the 19inch provision monitor at circuit city.  I have it ordered any wondered if its any good

[RandyT]

Didn't do the BF thing this year.

Went out yesterday (Saturday evening, in fact.) Stopped by Wal-Mart (had to get some dog food) and strolled through the electronics area.  They still had about 100 1gb SD cards for <$14 each.  I also passed one of those <$1000 42" plasma's nobody bought.  And way too many digital camera/printer combos to count.

Also still saw half a pallet or so each of other various "5-11" sales items.

I have a feeling the sales results are going to be below expectations this year.


On the videogame console thing;

I hope the scalpers hang onto the PS3's long enough for Sony to release all the PS3's they most likely have warehoused for the "shortage", that amazingly happens every time a new machine is released, and the scalpers machines become worthless.  These nimrods, and the people who fall prey to them, are just unwary corporate marketing tools.  And most, if not all of those ridiculous eBay prices are scammers putting it to the scalpers, which unfortunately is a concept a bit too complicated for the local media to grasp.  So they pick up the "story" and it gets perpetuated to the unwashed, who invariably walk around saying things like "yeah, them PS3's is selling for $10,000 on eBay.  It must be incredible."  I'm not kidding...heard this twice.

The videogame companies know that that they need to get the machines to the stores well before Christmas.  If they miss Christmas with a new machine, and the competitor has plenty to sell, they are are going to have a helluva game of catch-up to play.

Makes you think that that there will most likely be a lot more machines hitting the streets soon.

Sony is also appearing to use the limited distribution as a tool against retailers who don't do things the way it likes them to.  My nephew is a manager at a GameCrazy and they got the pointy end of the stick on PS3 shipments, while EB / Gamestop  seemed to have plenty to sell.  Interestingly, from what I have heard from previous EB employees, EB "pushes" games they are encouraged to push, regardless of a title's quality, whereas other outlets like GameCrazy encourage free-thought recommendations from their employees.  I watched a "housecleaning" take place at a local EB around when I started hearing this, so I tend to believe it.

KMart / Sears had none to sell.  Hard to believe that SEARS didn't rate, but maybe Kmart still owes Sony tons of money.  Who knows.

Nonetheless, it is very interesting to analyze who got the units and who didn't.  It's certainly not based on where they would have the highest likelihood of selling through.  That would have happened even if they were sold at a roadside rhubarb stand in Timbuktu.

It will be even more interesting to see how many of each of the systems are available at Christmas, as compared to a couple of weeks after.

RandyT

BTW, congrats to everyone who managed to make out well at the sales.  Around here, that comes with a risk of pneumonia, so I hope the rest of you get well soon! 

[ChadTower]

Yeah, thursday night/Friday morning, it was 35 degrees and raining hard here.

[AtomSmasher]

Wow, I never knew RandyT was such a conspiracy theorist.

[RandyT]

Wow, I never knew RandyT was such a conspiracy theorist.

That's just business, my friend.  Conspiracies are a whole different bird

Spent too much time in management positions and know too much of what goes on behind the scenes.  It makes it very hard to take anything a company says or does at face value.

If you still think what I presented are conspiracy theories, read some of the leaked stuff from the boardrooms of tobacco companies   And if that is too far removed, review some of the sensationalist advertisements Sony put out a while back. whose sole purpose was to create a media frenzy and to be removed from circulation.  Any publicity is good publicity when you are an 800lb gorilla.

RandyT

*EDIT*  Hehe.  I had to look at your home page after you made that statement, and the first thing on your blog is "As far as I can tell, AT&T Home Entertainment hates their customers, or at least hates anyone thats tries to cancel on them."   Ummm.....conspiracy or aggressive business practice?  Sorry, couldn't resist.   

[AtomSmasher]

*EDIT*  Hehe.  I had to look at your home page after you made that statement, and the first thing on your blog is "As far as I can tell, AT&T Home Entertainment hates their customers, or at least hates anyone thats tries to cancel on them."   Ummm.....conspiracy or aggressive business practice?  Sorry, couldn't resist.   

hehe, fair enough.  But then AT&T HE is just doing bad business practices, its generally not a good idea to make sure everyone that quits your service hates you so much that they will never come back and will tell their friends never to use the service.  Its a fairly new division of AT&T (formerly SBC) and they are still completely lost on how to properly do their job.  I remember when I first activated the service with them it took 3 trips from the cable guy to get it working.

Anyways, I don't think Sony's shortage was on purpose, they already had a lot of publicity being the sequal to the biggest last gen console and would have sold extremely well even if they were as plentiful as the Wii.  They had massive production problems with the computer chip used in the PS3, which is why they had such a shortage.  I think the only reason they released with the shortage is because they needed to be out before Christmas.  Its one of those things that you either believe the production problems reported from muliple sources were correct, or its a conspiracy for publicity by sony.  Conspiracies are not always wrong, so you could be correct.  I guess we'll see if theres a sudden surge of ps3's in all the stores before Cristmas.

[ChadTower]

Well, the best case scenario is that they usually rush a console to market, ahead of practical manufacturability of it, in order to meet holiday demand.  They rush it there before it is ready to satisfy the amount of units that would sell.

[saint]

That's the one we picked up for my nephew. He's happy with it. I have not seen it myself yet.

Did anyone else get the 19inch provision monitor at circuit city.  I have it ordered any wondered if its any good

[shardian]

Well, me and two friends got to Best Buy at around 3. What a frikkin joke! What were those people thinking actually standing in that line! Unofficially, I believe there were 300-400 people in line. Word was that 200+ had been camping since 8pm or so yesterday.
Anyways, we ended up at Walmart where I played ps3 for about an hour. I wasn't that impressed. Definitely not worth the price tag. I later played WII at the mall, which I thought was pretty neat, even though the graphics were not up to par. I also played the xbox 360 on the same NBA '07 game, and it was crap compared to the ps3. Graphics were inferior, and the game was dropping frames like crazy.

At Walmart, I got the $200 minidv camcorder, the $18 bag and minidv tape deal, a $13 1 gig thumb drive, and a $13 1 gig sd card.

Next, went to Sears and got the $39 19.2 Volt drill. Then went to J.C. Penny and ended up getting one of the $20 leather biker jackets. These were a steal at that price. Very nice quality.

Next, we got to Best Buy at about 8am. The checkout line was about 3 hours long.
I was able to get a ticket for the $699 laptop (with free 3-in-1 printer I might add  ) I wanted. I also got the $19 lappy bag w/ optical lappy mouse combo. They also had the nice foam dance pads for DDR on sale for $30 each - got two of those. What was sweet was that the line for computers was only about half an hour long. hehe. Screw you campers!!
As we were leaving the store, I noticed one of the ticket things sitting in a buggy. I grabbed, and it happened to be one of the $189 desktop tickets!!! I gave it to my buddy, and he went in and got one. Screw you again campers!!!

All in all, I considered the day a success. I definitely will never be waking up early again for Black Friday though. The ridiculous amount of campers really spoils things.

[stephenp1983]

That's the one we picked up for my nephew. He's happy with it. I have not seen it myself yet.

Did anyone else get the 19inch provision monitor at circuit city.  I have it ordered any wondered if its any good

Thanks, I kinda figured from your post that is the one you had gotten but wasn't sure.  I've now read a few reviews for it and it seems pretty good.  I won't be getting it til after Christmas.

[More Cowbell]

Staples was my first choice too. They had a ton of great crap. I bought the 60 gig external usb drive, the 1gig thumb drive, 1 gig sd card, the GPS w/ MP3 player, a free powerstrip, 4 cordless phones, and a pack of cd cases. When I got to the front of the line to pick up the thumb drive and sd card, the guy started checking people out so I was first to go. The clerk was so frazzled already that he scanned everything wrong, put it in a bad, handed it to me, and told me my total was $22.50. This was like $400 worth of stuff. The good angel and bad angel popped up and I had to make a split second decision. I decided to take the high road and told him that seemed low. He rescanned it all and it came up over $350. That's my good deed for 2006.

[mmmPeanutButter]

Staples was my first choice too. They had a ton of great crap. I bought the 60 gig external usb drive, the 1gig thumb drive, 1 gig sd card, the GPS w/ MP3 player, a free powerstrip, 4 cordless phones, and a pack of cd cases. When I got to the front of the line to pick up the thumb drive and sd card, the guy started checking people out so I was first to go. The clerk was so frazzled already that he scanned everything wrong, put it in a bad, handed it to me, and told me my total was $22.50. This was like $400 worth of stuff. The good angel and bad angel popped up and I had to make a split second decision. I decided to take the high road and told him that seemed low. He rescanned it all and it came up over $350. That's my good deed for 2006.

Wow.  I'm impressed.  I do a lot of good (like opening doors for women with strollers, pulling over and fixing flats), but I tend to be less good when it comes to corporate stupidity.  Good on you.

[ChadTower]

It's risky to try and get away with that large of a discrepancy.  Some places will charge it as shoplifting.  Undercharging at the register is a high traffic shoplifting method.

[shardian]

Yeah, I'll let errors in the dollar or two range go, but anything more I will always let the person know. It really does suck to have a conscience sometimes.

[_) (V) (-)]

Was it just here or did there seem to be a lot of extra media hype about the black Friday ads this year?  They had helicopters out patrolling the skies here this year. Freakin crazy man!

Seems all the stores had like 2x-3x more people lined up at them this year.
We used to get to the store 1-2 hours before the doors opened would have gotten you a real good place in line. (30-50 people) This year, we were in the back of a huge mob! like 250 - 300!

As already mentioned by others, the shelves were getting picked over when we finally got into Circus City, but I did still manage to snag a few items, (helps to have 3 people doing the snaggin) Still the situation with the checkout lines were horrible, worst I'd ever encountered! People were cutting in, 2 or 3 lines merging into 1. It took us 4 hours just to checkout and this was getting in line only 20 min after the doors opened!!! 

And the 'deals' (if you can call them that) weren't that great this year. It'll have to be a lot better next year to get me out into that mess again!

[ChadTower]

There was a lot more hype this year than usual.  And I have heard that same sentiment across the board... that other than TVs, the deals this year were not as good as usual and that there were a lot more people competing for them.

[kelemvor]

You can get deals almost as good as the BF deals if you watch the deals websites like www.fatwallet.com and others.  The deals for the past couple years haven't been anywhere near as good as they were 4+ years ago.  But all the media hype makes people who are uninformed think this is the only time to get these deals so they all go out and buy these things like crazy.

Me, I'd rather get them online during the rest of the year and not get sucked in by the hype.  heh heh.

[shardian]

Personally, the cheap doorbusters are out of the question for pretty much everyone now. However, BF still has great deals on the mid-high level priced stuff. For instance, the sub $400 laptops were impossible to get. However, the $699 and $899 laptops at Best Buy were excellent deals. Same with tv's - the cheapo 32" no dice, but plasma prices are at rock bottom AND you have a great chance of getting them on BF.

[ChadTower]

Or, as I did, you can just keep an eye out on the price watch sites and get a better TV for the same price online.