November 25, 2005 Shopping 'til Dawn

As long-time Daft Musings readers will know, a few years ago, I broke my habit of buying all Christmas gifts online in 2001, when I went on a mission to get a bargain on a DVD player for my friend Chris. ("Shop Shop Shop") To my surprise that year, it was rather painless. However, I've still been hooked on online shopping, and until this year, I hadn't done it since.

I suspect it had something to do with the newspaper tour I took with Neil's cub scout troop the week before, but after seeing the circulars being put together, I was compelled to buy the newspaper on Thanksgiving day, just to see the day-after-Thanksgiving sales. It was great fun to look at the ads, and some of the deals were extraordinarily good. For instance, Peter loves watching episodes of the TV show "24" during his workouts, and Best Buy had seasons 2 and 3 for sale at $19.95 each, 1/3 of the regular price. Peter and I browsed all the circulars and made lists of our favorite deals.

Then we put together a game plan on who would hit which place and when. We looked at the opening times for the stores, and it seemed like most of them opened at 5 am. Now I'm quite sure that just 5 years ago, the standard opening time was 7 am, but apparently competitive forces have been pushing the time back earlier and earlier. "Any earlier than 5 am," I commented to Peter, "and they'll just move it back to midnight."

And lo and behold, as we checked the opening times, we saw that CompUSA was actually opening its doors at 11:59 am on Thanksgiving day itself. Peter had his eye on some state-of-the-art keyboards there, so he volunteered to take that one. I went to bed early, and we both planned to get up at 4:30 am, to each take one child and zip into Best Buy and Circuit City, respectively.

And that's where it all went awry. Peter left for CompUSA at 11:40 and got in the doors as they opened. However, the keyboards he was looking for were not in the keyboard section. He found a clerk who told him first that the keyboards had sold out, but then when Peter went browsing just for the hell of it, he found them in a completely different section. He found one there, asked a clerk for another, who said there were none, until both spotted one by the registers. Peter asked about it and the clueless clerk merely shrugged. So then, half an hour after arriving, Peter got in line.

I woke up spontaneously at 3:30, and was startled not to find my husband at home. It was unthinkable that he would still be at CompUSA, so I feared for the worst. Completely freaking out, I got up and got dressed. As it turns out, Peter ended up being in line at CompUSA for 4 hours. He arrived home at 4:20 am, and advised me this scene was not one we wanted to drag our kids into, and by the way, I should get myself over to Best Buy, like, immediately. He gave me his cell phone so we could be in touch and revise our game plan on the fly.

His advice was right on. I arrived at Best Buy at 4:35 and found myself at the end of a line already stretching from the store and across two parking lots. In retrospect, Best Buy had the crush handled better than any other store. At the front of the store, there was free coffee for anyone, and the front of the store was cordoned off, and a rope kept the first hundred or so earlybirds in a neat line. Several times, Best Buy employees came by offering maps of the store (so you could get to the right department quickly) and maps of the lines, which were separate for computer stuff (which requires more time), electronics like televisions and stereos, and everything else.

Having nothing better to do, I chatted with the other people crazy enough to line up in the middle of the night. The woman in front of me was an expert early shopper, and she'd brought along a friend, whom she was, not very successfully, trying to convince that this was a worthwhile experience, at the very least a form of entertainment. A man behind me borrowed my circular, since he had his heart set on a plasma TV. Another man had done this for years, and I told him Peter's CompUSA story. He informed me that Circuit City (which had originally been set as Peter's initial destiantion) was invariably a madhouse, and that Fry's was ok, as long as you managed to get in line within the first 15 minutes. After that, he warned, and you might find yourself at the end of a line snaking through the entire store and back out into the parking lot.

And then the doors opened. We nightbirds filed in with remarkable politeness. By the time I got in, people were already in the computer check-out line. I pushed through to the DVD section, where I got Peter's 24 sets. But getting his PC game, Call of Duty 2, was considerably harder. Since the staff had used the item shelves to create walls for the lines, I had to go backwards through the computers line to get the game. But it was still there, and the computer shoppers were remarkably nice in letting me get through.

By 5:40 am, I was out with all the bargains on my list in hand. I called Peter, who advised Target as the next destination. It wasn't opening until 6 am, and when I got there, I was once again in a line of early, eager shoppers with whom I could share my circular. The line wasn't half as long as the one at Best Buy, but then it wasn't managed as well either. By the time I filed in with the line, relative latecomers were simply strolling in through the open doors.

After surviving the Best Buy crush, I knew that only the foolish (or those who need to make particularly large purchases) wield a cart (or a stroller!). Maybe the Target shoppers didn't know this, or maybe they all had a lot of shopping in mind. But I had a distinct advantage as I slipped and squeezed through several cart traffic jams in search of my targeted bargains. Another shopper actually helped me get a copy of Lego Star Wars for Neil, and two other items, though in the back of the store were close to one another.

Perhaps because I'd been so fast, or perhaps because I used the oft-forgotten upstairs checkout counters, the checkout line was almost non-existent. The only people in front of me were a couple with two carts: one full of childrens' board games, and another full of balls. I commented on what good deals both were, since I'd seen them advertised in the circular, but I had to ask, why so many? It turns out the couple had decided to eschew gifts for one another and instead buy gifts for the children in a local womens' shelter. For $143, they ended up with nice gifts for at least 30 children.

When I called Peter again, I'd obviously woken him up, but I told him I was going to Kohl's to snag some personal care items which were half the price of the lowest price I'd ever seen them at. Peter was of the opinion that Kohl's is an extremely girly store. I'd never been in it, probably since it had taken over the location of the world's most depressing KMart store.

It turns out he was right on his assessment of Kohl's. As a woman, I felt very comfortable there. It was filled with fluffy sweaters, cutesy throws, and unintimidating kitchen gadgets. The stuff I wanted was exactly where I expected it would be, and I think I may have actually grabbed the last foot spa on the shelves.

The checkout line was somewhat of another matter. Lines for both sets of checkout clerks ran halfway into the store. For the first time, I saw the line place-holder phenomenon. Inevitably men (who wouldn't be caught dead shopping in Kohl's themselves), they held a spot in the slow-moving line while the women of their family shopped and shopped. Kohl's did have a lot of tempting bargains, but I held myself to just that which I'd picked out from the circular the night before. I chatted with someone's husband holding a place in line behind me. Earlier, he told me, he and his family had gone to Circuit City, which he described as complete chaos. Afterwards, they'd gone to the Bed Bath and Beyond next door, which according to him, had been just fine. The line moved more slowly than it should have, but Kohl's had been open since 5 am and the clerks may have been tiring already.

I was out as the day was breaking shortly past 7 am, and I looked pitingly at the shoppers coming in who'd dared sleep in until dawn. See if that kind of laziness will get you a foot spa for 50% off!

Given our experiences, I rated the stores on their predawn sales. Here's how it came out:

CompUSA: F--no one had a clue, the sale items were misshelved and a 4-hour wait in line is just insulting. To add insult to injury, to get the sale price, we had to send in rebate forms, which were only good for one keyboard anyway!

Best Buy: B+--probably as good as it could get, though getting through the crowd would have been impossible with a stroller with a Kelly in it, much less with a cart.

Target--B If there's an impression of a shortage, the lack of line management could make for violence. On the other hand, the short check out line was sweet

Kohl's--C Probably the most typical Black Friday experience. The checkout line was slow, but steady, and the hot bargains were gone quickly.

Circuit City: D--I can't vouch for it personally, but it sounded like an experience most early shoppers didn't want to repeat