This is the worst Black Friday Ever!
 

there. i said it!

:D

I kind of agree, last year seemed better, I stayed up for HOURS, and I don't feel it compares to last year

it was pretty sad, but i guarantee there will be record numbers as people are trying to climb out of the recession... i didn't however see the 10,000 people around toys r us like back in 09

Agreed, couldn't grab a darn tv yet

I went to Target and was 100% underwhelmed.

what a complete waste of my time! miss the days of BCB, even the Overstock debacles, ha!

this thread pops up every year

everyone hurts

Yeah it was bad. I went to sleep at 1am last night!

agreed

all the very good deals happened Thursday morning. After that, everything else has not been as good.

That $179 40inch Toshiba cant be the worst BF Deal

I'm going to allow this. :iagree:

SBS will at least make up for some of the crap this year..

Is it Black Friday yet?

You Must have missed out on the $10 shake weight for men deal.

Hows that possible, theres tons of tv's on sale everywhere.

MS store had a pretty good BF. too bad i missed all of it yesterday nite.

Yeah I only made about 20% of the amount of purchases I have in years past. Just weren't very many great deals. A whole lot of meh.

black friday used to be a special discount day of the year, it's American culture, it is people holiday. Now black friday is more of businesses try to take advantage of it and want to sell out more of their stuff instead of giving out.

yeah, but this time its actually true ;)

awful

Since black "friday" stopped being on friday, I've totally lost interest. Saving an extra $10 off the next best sale price for something is really not worth missing family time.

This is the first year I haven't found one darn thing worth buying.

Yes it is, but 20 mins ago I was able to grab a Canon T2i refurb at Canon, just mysteriously came back in to stock along with the T1i:shake:

it gets progressively worse every year.

This was a terrible year.. No good deals on gfx cards, ssds (samsung or cruital)..

I'll agree this year. I don't understand how the same products are being sold at higher prices this year and still people are going crazy. The Xbox Kinect system was $150 last year for all the "hot" deals. Nowhere under $199 this year and the system is a year older???

I missed a few microsoft store deals that I'm kicking myself for :/ other than that I agree.

no, cannot agree, next year even worse...haha...

I dunno i got the Amazon ps vita bundle, 24 inch monitor, audiotechnica headphones, and couple of games. With no stress wutsoever thanks to awesome people posting up deals on SD. I'd say it was a great Black Friday.

ms store had a good deal on the i7 desktop xps 8500 , but they canceled my order today, so it wasn't such a good black friday :\

i'm reporting you to the mods for sperm, i mean spam. ;)

All the long time experienced people know its been getting worse and worse for about the past 6 or 7 years now. All the smart people dont even to the crazy ass lines for B&M shopping.

The issue is bad economy combined with idiots willing to overpay for garbage, so why should they bother with crazy good prices if morons still pay retail minus $5.00.

I concur...

No they didn't... for some reason people kept (re)posting all those laptops they have been clearancing like one and two at a time for the last month.

I even got one of them, then got a call today saying it wasn't available.

Lol more like White Friday.

Can't complain about the $25 Late October released Video Games that they have each year but outside of that yeah it sucked.

What we're missing is a good ole fashioned contest/sweeps, like the Amex Gift Chain from last year, Lowe's 90% off facebook contest, Ebay $1 Doorbusters, etc. Something fun as in year's past.

It was great if you love video games!

Hopefully Cyber Monday will be the best cyber monday EVER!!!

hopefully.

i only bought that canon mx892 printer.

The fact that you have to settle for a refurb T2i on BF kind of tells the whole story, eh?

Miss the days of $100 HP tablet rush

I hate it.. you get better deals with less effort all year around. On BF, u just spend hours trying to check out at stupid sites

i've spent more money on this black friday than any other black fridays combined.

10 3tb HDs + 8 3d sony ps3 monitors are the biggest spending + couple of canon cameras + alot of all smaller items add ons. not mention those staples visa prepaid giftcards that i can't spend because I have to use Amex for double warranty on all electronics.

people like a deal and the public as a whole is ignorant of last years pricing... i ended up spending about 350 this yr and got 1 of my big 3, got the 179 tcl 42" and wanted an ultrabook/tablet weren't any great deals on em.

I made money bought 600.00 worth of visa gift cards at office max for 85.00 Bought them with the discover and got 5 percent cash back. Whole deal cost me 546.00 made with discover I earned another 27.00 ... So I made about 77.00 buying the gift cards . Also forgot to mention 5.95 activation fee. Paid at register

:iagree: but I still bought one.

Every year, every year I heard the same thing.

i miss the facebook lowes 90% off coupons :\

I agree with all of you. I didn't see anything good at all.

A bad year for resellers, haha. So many damned TV deals.

Agree with poster above, MicrosoftStore had some really nice prices, sad I didn't know which ultrabook to buy and will now end up selling the Vizio I bought.

Other than that...only nice deals I got were on DSLRs that resulted from mistakes - Got a 60D + 70-300 for $799 and a 60D + 18-135mm for $799 :)

totally agree

I think those HD mulching coupons were OUR Black Friday. ;)

I think the best on line black Friday is like 2 years ago. Where is the newegg deal? Did I miss it?

Its all "Blank" this year. Didn't even spend one $$.

Too many no-name TVs...

I remember back in 2010, Buy.com had a 42" Panasonic Plasma for $299.

i though there were some good deals but i got mostly blu-rays and games which was my goal so i'm happy

I don't know, I had a truck full of shelves, toolboxes, tool chests, and a few toys for myself. Then I got lucky and got a $100 32" TV from amazon, decent BF for me, not the best, but pretty good. Every year is always the worst BF, because a good slick deal often beats a good black friday deal.

Black Friday was always the best when Bush was president. Oh boy do I miss him now...

lol same here. i was there for about 3 minutes.

the $$ GCs on the receivers? that was the shiz. ;)

They seem to be getting worse every year the first few years. It seems that black friday is so know for deals people will just show up for the even if the deals aren't that great. Kind of like apple ios products....the iphone 1 was a big leap as a device , so apple got a great reputation off that and now can just release incremental upgrades and people line up to buy them.

It's Bush's fault.

lol not sure if srs. I had a blast, I bought everything online, didnt miss any deal I wanted to get to. got all my lightning deal by being there first second it went live. I bought way to much stuff.

No you didn't miss anything from newegg except for 128GB kingston ssd, but we'll have a deal like that soon within next year.

In for 1

It's all been downhill since Value America.

I've been on many porn sites today and hitting F5 on SD. Success!

Dudes.....

I didn't find anything cause i already have enough sh!t i don't use from the year long deals i find here.

Last years BF sucked, only good thing was chase point redemption for discounted best buy items, is that coming back this year at all?

You guys did'n get in on the three hundred fifty dollar refurbished 2nd gen i3 laptop deals? lol

Don't blame me, I voted for Romney :-)

Saw a couple great gaming deals, got a vita. Tempted to get a 2nd sony ps 3d monitor. Saw some decent Microsoft store laptop deals as mentioned except I didn't see them. They were all insta OOS. Not enough time to post to SD before OOS. So yeah, my guess, ultra low stock for black friday prices. Borderline scam to bring me to their webpage. Perhaps there is a better word for it, certainly feels like they intentionally wasted my time by misleading me.

The reason why BF appears to be getting worse with time is because of this -

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

I had a great Black Friday, and never left the house(cept once). If not for SD it totally would have sucked. Won't list EVERYTHING, but some notables:

Xbox games galore, from $6-$14 for some great stuff (and JUST got the BF3 premium 2 seconds ago for $25)
GTX670 GB OC Windforce $320AR w/ 2 free sweet games
Troy AR-15 from Dicks for $720 (normally $1100), sweet rifle
Galaxy Note for $399+tax from TRU
Asus 15.6" i5 laptop for $369 with all of the goodies (aluminum chassis, oh yeah)
Ton's of good stuff from NewEgg BF including white 500R for $70AR, 750W Corsair PSU for $50, Asus BR $40, Corsair H60 for $40(already have H100, H60 is for budget build), few others
Canon SX260 for $200
2xVertex 4 256MB SSDs for $290
Ton's of toys for a steal (2xE90 razors for $65 each + $7 for 2 year replacement each), telescope, nerf guns, 2x match box car sets $5, 2x megablocks 100pc for $10 (vs $40), the fureal dog $15 (vs $67), and more
TONS of breat Blu-Rays for $3-5 a pop, and at least 10-15 3D ones for $15 avg each.
A bunch more... I am still sorting out everything I ordered, but the family and friends are gonna have a good xmas!!!

keeping up with all the deal alerts was really kicking my ARSE, they were coming in at least 5-10 / hr, most of them with 2-7 items in each one, I don't think I have had more than a few hours of sleep a night for 4 days.

Once again, thank you SD!!!!! Both to all of you that posted all of this stuff(I gave more rep points in the last week than I have in the last 6 months probably!), and of course the the SD crew on having the most kickass site for deals on the inet and making sure that it didn't screw up once through yet another xmas shopping season :D.

You said it.

That said, I did get some decent online deals. Thank you SD for my $440 + CB Ipad 4.

Very well said!

All I got is 3 ps3 3d display panels..

I can't believe people are paying 200 shipped for these on ebay when the new price in store is 179.99

to me it's been pretty dry. You can tell simply because people like me are wasting time replying to this pointless post. And yes, I do slickdeal everyday.

I have to agree.

Hubby and I have been shopping BF for fifteen years as of today. We started totally B&M, of course, but over the years have moved more to the virtual deals. The constant though, was that we ENJOYED going out B&M. We really didn't head out till 5am which is when places started opening (a few at 4am but unless something specific, we didn't usually go there). Years past our usual lineup was something like 12 or more stores. By 10/11am, the van was FULL, and it was time for brunch and then a movie before coming home to nap and get the kids back. We were usually picking up things for other family members, too, contributing to the van fullness.

This year was blah on so many levels. Sales starting at 8pm ON Thanksgiving? That blows. I want time to enjoy my tryptophan, TYVM! And my seconds or thirds on pie.

10pm Thanksgiving night checking out of Walmart with 1 iPad.
Tried Sears for the $10 DVD player, they must have had about 5 in stock *rolls eyes*. Left empty handed.
OfficeMax for the $50 itunes cards for $35 and 32gb jumpdrives for $10. This one was quick, in and out.. but no other impulse buys.
HalfPriceBooks - did ok here, what's not to love about a deal on books? Line was longest I've ever seen for that store. Staff was really nice and was carting out coffee to everyone in line.
B&N - Leappad2 score. Cashier nice, everything came off automatic, no issues. Store was also *dead* - 5 people including us waiting at opening time.

And that was that. We made one more B&N run tonight for some Legos, maybe a few new release books.. when I saw paperbacks were up to $10 retail now (I thought 7.99 was bad! ugh! GET OFF MY LAWN!). Got Legos, came home.

I think what gets me is that it used to be the "doorbusters" were the loss leaders like at a grocery store. You'd get people in the door with them, then encourage browsing, "oh yeah I need that while we're here" impulse buys. Especially as they waited to checkout and saw things other customers had. This has been changing to you're only bothering to come for the doorbuster at all, and if it's gone... so are you. There just wasn't anything uber-exciting, and definitely not the continuing excitement of good buys at multiple stores in a row where I always knew if we missed one there were others coming up.

With all of that said, I'm done and ready for wrapping - thanks to online deals and of those in large part thanks to SD. Next year... we may not go out for BF at all. Maybe what was once tradition is now outdated and should be abandoned in favor of new traditions.

got plenty of sleep this Thanksgiving/Black Friday compared to the previous years.

Last year was looking bad, but it turned the corner on black friday. This year, the turn never happened. Luckily I bought my Samsung 256GB SSD for $135(after Ebay bucks) a couple weeks ago. Prices this year are the same OR higher than last year.

Example
2011 Samsung Steam washer/dryer = $1000, regular price $2200
2012 Samsung blue washer/dryer = $1200, regular price $1800

2011 Skil mitre saw = $59
2012 Skil mitre saw = $79

2011 Sharp 70 =$1500(frys)-$1800
2012 Sharp 70 =$1800

And 32" monitor prices have gone up to(outside of rando brand door busters). I know there were several 32 1080P LCD/LED HDTVs last year for less than $300. This year Crickets.

32" Samsung 720p for $250=Doorbuster?
Blu ray players seem more expensive as well.
What was with the old Nikon D3000 deals?

I miss the old days. 32" 1080P LG for $230, and a Harmony 1100 remote for $59. Sigh... good times.

You hit the nail on the head! Our experience has been basically the same, time frame and all.

i used to do black friday and keep a tab on it....then i moved out for college and my money towards that :(

Same thread, different year. I didn't check through all the posts to see if anyone else has made this observation, but...seriously.

I'm not in the market for much this year but I think I saw a 50 inch LED TV for $299? Two years ago I stayed up all night trying to get a shitty 42" for $300. I know TV prices go down with time but that on top of lots of great $4.00 blu-rays, cheap AAA games, some pretty good monitor deals (PS3 for $100).

Maybe I have low expectations because I typically don't expect much from big box retailers.

i thought i hit a new level of frugal when i thought Black Friday wasn't enticing at all but now you guys make me feel better :)

There is no "the worst" Black Friday.

There are "worse" BFs each year, worse and worse and worse.

at this rate, cyber monday has the ability to be better than black friday.

lol, who am i kidding!

I had an awesome Black Friday/Thanksgiving, and I didn't stand in a single line. I went out a little, but not a ton.

Started shopping on Amazon on Sunday, all the way thru till Friday. On Amazon, I got probably a few dozen cheap TV seasons, and $1-4 movies, the $180 42" TCL LCD, the 32" Haier LCD, Pyrex storage set, $40 Roku, $38 blu-ray player etc. (Yes, I know some (not all) of these deals can be gotten year round, but it's convenient to have them during the holiday season, when you're looking for gifts).

FoxConnect had so many $6-8 TV seasons for gifts and for myself, I bought 25 TV seasons from there, and I think it averaged out to $6.70/boxset.

I went to Dollar General Thanksgiving morning and got a $15 5qt. deep fryer, and some other cheap $5 small appliances as gifts, plus $1 Pringles (best price I've seen in a long long time around me), cashews, that Walking Dead TV shooting game (for $20, half what Amazon wants).

I also went to Walgreens Thanksgiving morning and got the $10 Walgreens gift card with $30 in iTunes gift cards; best deal as well, if Walgreens cards are good as cash, which for me they are, because I then used those to buy 2/$4 Welch's Sparking Grape Juice (get them every year, nobody beats Walgreens deal on it).

Went to Walmart after the lines died down, got a few TV boxsets from there for under $10, and some $1-4 movies.

In the morning, swung by Menard's, about 10 mins after it opened (everyone was already inside), got a $5 watch for my grandma for xmas, got some of these cheap jars, more cheap small appliances, cheap candy, a train set for under the tree, etc. Would've gotten batteries, but we have so many from last year, we don't need more.

Then we went to Half Price Books to get the $15 off $50 coupon.

After that, we went to KMart to get the Frosty/Claymation Rudolph/Santa DVD's for $5 with a free pack of Oreo cookies with each.

Then later in the day, when the Groupon kicked in, we went to Toy's R Us and got a board game to play on Christmas.

We never spent more than 5 minutes in any line, including checkout, nothing we wanted was out of OOS, and a lot of our big shopping was done from the convenience of home. Not too shabby if you ask me. Maybe the deals weren't quite as good, but the shift to buying online and avoiding absurd lines is more than worth the slight cost hike. Besides, taxes in Illinois are almost 10%, so buying online is pretty good deal anyway. Also, I am practically done Christmas shopping now, so yay!

$179.99 plus tax and gas is right around 200 Maybe thats what ppl are thinking? but if it needs to be returned, sucks for them...

Thank god there weren't many of you.

No Thank God there are still many of us

Got myself the $100 Sony Playstation 3D monitor and $500 for 50" Sony EX645, happiest day of my life this year.

Got myself a 51" Samsung plasma early this year in April for only $375 :D

Amen!

I concur

tax killed every single deal on Amazon. Why did CA need to implement tax before Black Friday!?!??!?!?!?!

2010 was quite enjoyable, IIRC. Everything after (for me) has been getting milder and milder. The irony is that I have much more disposable income now than I did back in '10.

Went to Frys, laughed at the "deals" and left, I want my hour of life back >=(

Last year I scored 8G's of ram, a free case, a free PSU at Fry's what the hell happened.
Now that micro center is closed, not more good CPU+ mobo combo for us here in bay area anymore
And Amazon doing us like this with taxes right before BF this year is plain shady.
Walmart... I am not buff or big enough to brave the crowds for your meh TV at a amazing price of $700
So... Cyber Monday/ Boxing Day here's a toast to the possibility for you guys to pick up the slack.

The world is on to us. What are we to do now?

Not saying it wasnt bad but.
 

I was completely surprised on how more organized Wal-mart was compared to Target. Sorry but a 20 min wait in a line just to look in the electronic section of Target. Um no thanks i rather play in a busy street. :D

Best Buy was a joke. I went into Wal-mart 4 times because I had friends call for stuff while I was out so they didn't have to get in the traffic. I was able to get my stuff, their stuff in 1hr and 30mins. (8-930pm). Target. I went to just look. I saw the line just to leave with your purchases. Nothing they sold was worth that wait. I went to Best Buy at 1am and there was still a line outside the door with more people showing up. If you were not there for the door busters, then Best Buy.com covered everything you wanted.

Over all The online deals were like you said not great but some of them were not bad either.

Greenmangaming.com drop XCOM (new one) PC from 49.99 to 28.12 (digitial download - still on sale for this price). Microsoft store dropped a bunch of kinect games to 9.99. (star wars, Gunslinger w/fruit ninja, etc - still on sale). Amazon had all TV seasons that best buy had on sale early like 5pm early then the 12am wait for best buy to open. Origin for PC and some console put lot of games 70% off. So i guess it depends on what you are looking for. In terms of Appliances I would have to agree. In terms of games. I think it was little better this year.

delete

I had a pretty good day online but I went to Best Buy and I noticed some grimey behavior which I guess some people might say it's good but I'm not sure.

They had the Toshiba door buster deal and it was "sold out" at the store, I couldn't get any employee to admit they had some. I didn't wait on line, I came later in the day. I wasn't looking for the TV I was just asking out of curiosity.

I walk all around the store and go to the back where merchandise comes in. The dude is pulling in a palette of Toshiba 40 inches. I'm like hey cool that's the TV. So I ask him and he's like nah this isn't the one. So I follow, he unloads it on the floor, I casually say to my friend, hey those are the doorbuster tv's. My friend immediately jumps on it, and purchases it.

I just felt like either the guy was afraid he would get stampeded or it's kinda crazy that they are just not being honest. Not sure how I feel about this. Oh well, friends happy, it's all good. I bought some SSD's online. I got a cool bag at best buy for 12 bucks and only waited on line for 10 minutes max.

It also kinda hits me that waiting online sucks. I mean, why wait online through this weather when you can just come in to the store later in the day, walk around a while and eventually the item will show up again. This has happened to me numerous black friday's before. I been at this for 6 years already. And everything year I see shit like this happen. It feels like everything is a mirage. I didn't even feel I bought anything that was black friday worthy this year, only 1 SSD seems ok but that depends on the firmware lol. Blah I don't know. I have mixed feelings.

edit: There were only 2 of them on the palette, it wasn't like 20 of them or something but it did make me question it.

My black friday wasn't too bad, got the Seagate 3Tb external for $99, the 120Gb Kingston HyperX SSD for $59, and my annual free antivirus software. Speaking of which I gotta send that rebate out. Best of all didn't have to leave the house.

Hopefully! waiting for ultimate ears triple fi 10 :lmao:

SlickDeals spoiled Black Friday because everyday is Black Friday on SlickDeals!

Exactly. I might say 2009 wasn't bad either. But 2011 and 2012, total bummer.

was there any coupon stacking ontop of BF discounts like, the $5 nx revolution mouse a couple years ago, or the $12 sansa clip last year?

Agreed. After Stand by for 2 days all I got just $100 Playstation Display and couple of Xbox 360 games. ..

my store had the updated 40" s22u, not the s2200 that was the doorbuster, for $399.

there was no way you walked in later in the day and saw a pallete of those tv's. the tickets were gobbled up way fast, i wait for one and had no luck.

rednecks? nah, we should put you guys on an island far far away.

I feel Black Friday is becoming Black Week, making deals water out all week and hard to track everything. Also companies need to come up with a better solution to their online sales...maybe create a BF only website and dump everything there just my 2 cents

Cyber Monday, by experience, is never better.

Where is the Chase Freedom Ultimate Rewards discounts?

Yea this BF has been extremely underwhelming. Got a couple of things, but overall it has been extremely dissapointing. At least my wallet thanks me!

And what a glorious deal that was. See, THAT made for a good Black Friday.

I bought a ton of stuff this past couple days and spent a ton of money, but I could take all of it or leave it. I mean, the items are all things that I really want. I don't really know what it is. I felt no rush or anything.

In terms of computer deals, this truly is the worst. The highlight of this year Black Friday is the 2nd generation i3 dell laptop for 300. LOL, most people didn't even get the chance to add it their cart. It was already gone before Black Friday came. This is truly a low ended Black Friday event, all low ended crap people would not have taken a second look at if it was selling at a regular price. However, I heard great computer deal don't usually come until near Christmas, so don't fret just yet boys.

so far, for the past 3 years, regular daily/monthly deals have beat out BF deals.

Everyday is black friday on slickdeals.

I also agree...nothing really stood out to me this year. For the very few things I did keep a lookout for, deals didn't really overwhelm me. Here's to hoping next year's a lot better.

some of my best deals were last month but this last few days have been productive. Haven't tallied it up yet but two laptops, three HDTVs, Smartphone, Logitech speakers, 3TB ext HDD and more. But it wasn't easy, I lost a lot of sleep and had to act fast. The doorbusters came on early this year so I was done by last night. A lot of disappointing BF specials for sure and more people out there looking to stretch their dollar nowadays.

removed

The big ticket items were offered at very good prices this year. HDTV's many were 50% off retail prices. SSD had dropped 40+% from just this last summer with some good prices on large storage hard drives. Tools were market down well. To me it seemed there was not much "small purchase items" marked down.

Frankly I spent more money this year (loading up) than in the past many many years. Mainly because I believe the US will see much higher inflation in the next few years.

There are more people shopping online so you have to much quicker to get the really good deals. Also there is so much more reselling going on now that good deals sell out fast, then end up within a short period of time on ebay or craigslist.

Truly, many of the obtainable good deals happen in the 4 weeks prior to black friday.

The lines of Black Friday were blurred this year by retailers opening before midnight (aka on Thanksgiving) Which has now become Grey Thursday. So next year who really knows what it will be like. Possibly "Black November"

The B&M stores are really having a hard time competing against online sales. "Especially those online stores who dont charge sales tax" I would expect all remaining states to start charging tax soon for online transactions.

Almost all items this year included free shipping. A key aspect when it comes to my online purchases. I HATE PAYING ANY SHIPPING CHARGES.

B&M stores have all the expenses while the online merchants make the money. I know in my case, before I make a big online purchase i.e. HDTV I go to the B&M store, review, inspect, compare to others... then I go online to wait for the item to hit my purchase price point. Online wins & B&M looses (plus incurs expenses that online does not have)

In my area Target, Home Depot, Lowes were all dead.

The hot stores were Walmart, Menards, BB, Harbor Freight, Sams club,

Ohhh BTW SEARS get your online website ($h*t) together as well as your (shopyourway rewards program) or I can see your company drifting off into the sunset like JCP

the educated consumer is here, they have all comparision shopping information in the palm of their hand at anyplace and anytime, are the B&M stores ready?

Definitely the WORST for me

Prices were either the same or more... funny considering prices of items should become lower since they are getting older and newer models are out - one difference though - less items than last year

Heck some stores barely had anything and other stores considered 5-10 dollars to be a BF deal. My fingers aren't crossed for "cyber monday" lol

Yep. I just learned about slick deals during the HP tablet fiasco and since then.. it's like BF on almost every category for the whole year.. much less stressful too.

I'm pretty satisfied with amazon's VITA ACL bundle though.. then again.. I'm still skeptical if I'd get the Gold Box offer even though 2 amazon reps and a chat support already told me I'm eligible.. too bad CA has tax already.. but I kinda like paying tax since I know people who are on welfare xD Makes me feel less guilty for not donating to the less fortunate ones :P

Gee I don't know.... I saved a whole $10 on a blu ray player...every other deal was snapped up in seconds this year.

I bet all the haters that bragged that they were going to get their TVs and other deals online are the majority of the whiners on this thread! Those of us that camped had a great Black Friday and cleaned up!

More and more reseller people this year,try to get the vizio which I failed miserablely.Just check your area craigslist for walmart vizio deal (the only one good I think)and you can find it alot with price range from $850-$950 Happy holiday everyone

Terrible black friday no doubt. Most stores had lukewarm deals at best and many of the usuals with killer deals came out this year disappointing.

Thumbs down

The deals were awful this year compared to last year. I mean it really dropped off and their was nothing I wanted in store so I just stayed online and waited up for things to go live. I hate that I missed the Microsoft Store Game Sale. Ugh!!

The only deals I got were:

The B1G1 Free Breaking Bad Seasons DVD sets 1-4 at Best Buy. Great Deal
Two Ipad 2's(for mom and dad) 60 each off Best Buy, 2-15 Itunes gift cards, $35 in rewards for each, and 5% cashback. That was an decent deal considering I couldn't really find it cheaper anywhere else.
2- $39 750GB Seagate Portable 3.0 Drives from Target
1- Western Digital Elements 2TB Drive from Frys
.99 cent Iphone deal(upgraded to 4S) since I was going to do it eventually when you consider my Gen 1 is to slow. lol
My girlfriend also bought a lot of girl clothes for my niece at Kohls online since they had good deals and offered Kohl's cash.

The TV deals sucked, hate that I missed the TCL 40" from Tigerdirect, would have been a steal for $130 after rebate.

Last year I purchased double this list. The only game steals were really from Microsoft, but their were a lot of cheap dvd's and TV show box sets on sale. I didn't bite since we have Hulu and Netflix already and I can watch most of those show and movies instantly. I just couldn't pass up Breaking Bad. lol

So yesterday morning, around 6:30 AM I went to my local walmart in Dumfries, VA to buy some games, knowing that some might not be available. One of the games I wanted was Borderlands GOTY for PS3.

When I got to the store, I looked for the display pallets for games. They had tons of movie ones, but no games. I looked at the display cases and sure enough, they were packed. A lot of games had the usual color coded stickers on them. Many games were put in the display case under their tags, but lots of games were tossed in the bottom of the cases randomly.

Anyways, I looked and looked and spoted Borderlands GOTY and a couple other games I wanted. I had someone get them out of the case and went to check out. While the others rang up on sales, Borderlands GOTY rang up at 29.96 and not $15. Since there were others there and I had other things to check out too, I said I would pay now and go to CS for a price adjustment. When I got there, I struck out over and over. One person told me that because the game I had didn't have a sticker on the outside, it is supposed to be full price, despite the sales ad not saying games needed to have a sticker on them and my copy of WWE 13 note having a sticker and coming up on sale. Another person said the game wasn't part of the sale even though I showed them a picture of it in the ad. Another person said the sale was only for Thursday night (8 or 10 PM until midnight). Another person said the sale was only until a random time today. Another person said because the game was in a display case and not on a pallet, it shouldn't be honored at the sale price, even though they put their games from the pallet into the display case.

I eventually spoke with the Assistant store manager on duty, Sarah, who just wouldn't budge. She says the sales flyer says the sale is while supplies last, and only games with a sticker are considered part of the supplies. I say bologne! The ad says nothing about stickers - it shows the game and a price, and no mention of an end date either. I was fed up and took a refund. I asked for the number for the district manager and was given 1800Walmart instead. This is wrong. I know it's only $15, but it's the principle of it. They had a sale and I followed what the sales fyler said, but they wouldn't honor the price. I would be fine if the ad said the prices were good until a certain time or if the store associates all had the same story. The fact that I was told 5 or 6 different things is proof whatever training there was isn't working.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Go run/exercise in a park! You'll feel better and forget about this by the end of your exercise. Now go!

The best sales were thanksgiving morning.
After that it was meh, though I did a ton of online buying Thursday & Friday.....thanks SD!!!

If you don't need a TV, then BF sucked for you. If you state anything else otherwise, than you didn't get that good of a deal, and you are fooling yourself into thinking you did.

Everyone has a flat TV 32" or greater these days, yet everyone shits their pants like it's some kind of new found technology.

beat you to it
http://slickdeals.net/f/5534580-I...ck-friday?

Decent BF, not nuclear.
Got 10 of the $88 Seagate 3TB externals, a bunch of the $39 Target Seagate 750GB portables and two ultrabooks.

Topped it off with dinner at Twin Peaks, which was having a black lingerie Black Friday event.
Now THAT was an EXCELLENT Black Friday! :eek:
http://www.twinpeaksrestaurant.co...acks-here/

meh not for me it didn't. I was able to buy 4 PS3 games, 1 blu movie (Serenity), and 1 TV show season (Firefly) for $75 and the most I paid for an item was $15.

i doubt people are dumb to pay twice on ebay or craigslist for the price you pay for the tv you bought at black friday

Thats why so many people are reselling on ebay & craigslist right? None of them are making any money..

Why are there so many reseller threads on the net?

Humm.... Buy a $1300.00 tv for $688.00 and then sell it for $999.99.


Never under estimate stupidity

More and more reseller people this year,try to get the vizio which I failed miserablely.Just check your area craigslist for walmart vizio deal (the only one good I think)and you can find it alot with price range from $850-$950 Happy holiday everyone "


They can ask for that price but who is buying it? They will be posting that at craigslist for months to come or ebay until they lower the price to what they paid for at black friday.

I saw some people using MSRP of the TV set as it's value/worth. I just shake my head.

I see thread like this every year.

Where's the HP Touchpads!! (sorry I had to). :)

Thats why so many people are reselling on ebay & craigslist right? None of them are making any money..

Why are there so many reseller threads on the net?

Humm.... Buy a $1300.00 tv for $688.00 and then sell it for $999.99.


Never under estimate stupidity "

I tried that route. resellers was so 2000, nowadays the inverntory just move around from big box to individual sellers. No one is buying this stuff at craigslist or ebay. I tried that at craigslist or ebay and no one is paying for the price you ask. You will sit on it for months by then there will be more deals. I was selling one item for 5 months at 20 percent profit and no one is biting. ebay? who wants to deal with a person who files a dispute after they receive your item.

i got a gtx 670 for 320 after rebate with two games (that i am not supposed to sell but will sell). good price in my opinion.

I miss the price mistakes, and in for a cancellation posts like we had in the past years! I found that this year was a little boring. Maybe I have everything I need this year already. I did buy the Omma for 99.99 but that is all.

I agree with you! I could use new running shoes, like the Puma 40% 40% 40% off coupon... Or the lowes 90% off if you click the button quick.

Back In the day the ads were actually leaked. Now they are so carefully planned releases.

the "deals" suck this year

I got smaller stuff this year, but agree, on a whole, it was an underwhelming year of deals. Part of that could be I've got a lot of the "door busters" that people want, and I refuse to spend $500 on a "great deal" tv bc unless It's something I'm totally sold on, I'm not going to drop $500 just because it's on sale and a good deal. If it's not what i want feature wise at that point, not worth it. I think amazon's deals leading up to thanksgiving were better. Always next year.

I actually made out pretty decent. Got two out of the three must have games on hubby's list (Madden and WWE 13), was able to snag Epic Mickey 2 for the kids, was able to get all of the stuff I wanted from Toys R Us online without the system wigging out like I was fearing, and got my totes from VS and BBW. A little disappointed I missed out on the $97 TV, but hoping I can score something next week.

Just a couple thoughts...

1. It's harder to get the outstanding deals online because more and more people use sites like Slickdeals so they are sold out in a few seconds.

2. Less stores honoring orders and more and more cancelling them every year. Seems like more and more good deals get cancelled because they are "out of stock" yet you can buy it at the full price. Just browsing through the forum it's amazing how many people are getting cancelled even if they got it and bought it when it was in stock. Also, seems to be more common where you sit there and try to add a legit deal to the cart and checkout and it can't be done.

3. Having it start on 8 pm on Thursday at some stores pretty some what killed Black Friday. It pretty much became black friday week or black friday week and a half with places like Amazon starting on Monday and going through the next Monday (cyber monday) and might go through next week yet(?). It was more exciting when it was one day and not spread out.

4. Amazon and other sites seemed to push a ton of stuff they want to get rid of at say 10-50.00 off instead of having less deals at say 100-500.00 off. My brother went to kmart and walmart and seen bikes that were 8.00 off and tvs that were 20.00 off. Minus the few door busters... With amazon and their lightning deals I remember years ago where there were a lot less deals but every deal was unbelievable and you couldn't pass it up even if you didn't need it. I think they got tired of everyone being mad because those few deals were sold out instantly and said we will just do 165 lightning deals a day that way everyone gets something they like. Only problem is most of them seemed like stuff they wanted to just get rid of (3 pack scotch tape!!! speaker wire!, etc). So instead of a few deals with 100's off it was a ton with like 5, 10, and at most like 50.00 off with the laptops. Side note: Another thing was a lot of the lightning deals and other deals seemed to be off brands and older products. Most people don't know and just see a price but a lot of 60hz tvs at big sizes will have more pixelation. People think they got a good deal but odds are a tv from Spectre, Apex, Quantum View and Scheital or whatever it was will have a problem. Hard enough to not have problems with the bigger name brands like Vizio, Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony and Samsung.

5. Also, you have to realize as things get cheaper you are going to get less money off. So when tv's were 2500+ dollars getting 500-1000 was amazing. Now with tv's being 500 and under you aren't going to get anywhere near that. With things like dvds and blu rays they are pretty much topped out at 1.99 (seem some at .99) and with blu rays like 3.99. With dvds you cant go much lower than .99 or it isn't worth selling for them. There might be a few more dvds at .99 and blu rays at say 2.99 but don't expect stuff to drop much more next year. There is only so low they can go. It's different when dvds were like 25-30.00 and you could get 10-15 off... now as the prices go down there is less savings.

From my professional experience in dealing with product pricing/placement I can tell you that sites like this and information always available are what kills the desire to offer incredible deals on Black Friday. It used to be that people would have to go all over looking for a good deal, which would force them to go into stores that didn't have what they wanted but had shiny packaging on it. In the heat of the moment if people saw other people buying it they assumed it had to be a great deal. B&M stores made their money by getting you in, so they could afford the rediculous deals and freebies. Now people make it a strategy plan to ONLY go to this place and that place because they saw the deals a week or two ago. This makes it hell on the competition, and even if the stores throw out a super doorbuster, people just Google the prices of the other "awesome deals" and pass on it. Yes, price knowledge helps the consumer but stores use ignorance as a chance to clean out the junk and it just isn't happening like that anymore.

The deals are supposed to be a surprise! You guys are looking for unwrapped presents under your Christmas tree and it's just killing the fun. :)

Yeah man, I'm totally entitled to deals...now where the F are they!?!?? :mad: ;)

I agree, but there are still those individuals who dont know how to shop (mostly elderly) that will end up paying MSRP or close there to.

I had a good BF, of course I wasn't looking for a TV as I can't afford one.

I was able to get all the games on my kids wishlist online for a good price.
Still have to buy for my parents and sister but the videos of people flipping out over TV's is entertainment.
I'm happy with my 20 inch, it works, I get channels, no biggie.

No MC Overwhelming Offers, no Amex MyWishlist.. And too many damn banners on SD... :confused:

Bad Black Friday
Oh well at least we used valuable time of our lives on staring at a screen hoping to save $7.35 on a hard drive (which I did not get)

My wife and I went to Old Navy and were similarly unimpressed. The best deals were in the clearance section.

yeah this year was bad

$230 39" LED
$40 Kinect sensor w/ adapter
$25 NBA 2k13
$15 Kinect Sports Ultimate & Dance Central 3
$16 Pyrex 18-piece
FREE 25 cans of tennis balls

Pretty much paid for by the $125 ING Direct/$125 Sharebuilder bonus :lol:

Stay thirsty, my friends :)

Same here, all year thought I could afford a decent latest generation HDTV on thanksgiving, and after seeing them, deep inside I just couldn't drop some coin. Just like any business, the retailers have realized the need to squeeze out more money from people's pockets, by using Black Friday as an opportunity

Years ago when the stores opened up at 5am, most gave out gift cards to the first 100 customers. It was the only reason to wait in line. Did any retailers do that this year?

It was the best BF imo. Got everything on my list and cheaper than the deals for last year. Even got my laptop in less than 15 minutes and was able to skip the lines at Walmart and BestBuy.

Definitely the most organized and best Black Friday in the 3 years I've been going.

Someone needs to put a dirty pair of panty hose in your mouth. You have just spit on the very essence of Slick Deals and should be ashamed to have an account..

damn, I think I was a little tough on the poor guy :)

I rarely go to B&M stores on or around BF - time with friends and family is worth more than saving a few dollars and dealing with crazy consumers, or just trying to find a parking spot, lol. And I bought nothing online this BF either. Mainly because I already got an i5-2500k CPU from Microcenter for $100 last Friday, and a clearance Denon AVR-1612 receiver for $100 three weeks ago from Best Buy. So the actual BF date didn't rate much compared to those deals. I agree with some other commenters, seems like there are better deals throughout the year if you keep an eye out for them.

The real deals aren't in the tv's, laptops, and other electronics for the most part (Vizio 60" being the exception this year). Most of the tv's and laptops are not the quality brands we see year round in the stores. Just limited run sets that may or may not last and don't provide the best picture.

The real deals, are in the media side of things. Blurays, DVDs, and games are where you can really find some good deals. The MS store had some great deals going on as did Walmart for movies and games. Also, not popular or sexy for that matter, are the clothes that are on sale. Especially clothes for the kiddos. $4 pajams, $6 house shoes, $8 7-packs of tshirts, etc. Those are all good deals.

I think more anything else, what's making BF seem not as good as it used to be, is obviously SD, but also the mainstreamness (word?) of online shopping. I remember back in the day before online shopping really took off that Compusa (RIP) had some insane deals that were worth fighting the crowds over. There are still some of these deals around, but the trend has been fewer and more far between rather than insane deals at every store.

best response of the year! you can save on junk and garbage after black friday too! ;)

Black Friday deal is "really" black Friday!!!
 

I spent all Friday trying to get the 3S but no success because cannot get the best deal unless spending lots on monthly bill on data plans!!!! :mad:

I disagree for a few reasons, one, the elderly are experienced shoppers, hence the word elderly...they have many years of doing so, and being/doing so frugally. Many have lived through the hard times, unlike the generations born in the 60's forward, and know first hand what it is to want/need essentials, (not the same as the wants the generations for the past 30 years or so call wants). They've been there, done that, through the phases of life and learned to sit back and be patient, live off the hard earned monies they have and not off crediplastic or others. Also.....who do you think have more of the funds to buy the flipped items....the younger generations...think again.

Many of them have no wealth to speak of, don't work, or not much, are used to the instant gratification mindset....and are in debt due to all the non-frugal ways of their spending. :vomit:

My one purchase this BF ironically had nothing to do with BF. Went to Radio Shack for the 32 GB flash drive since I couldn't check out online, well they were sold out by 7:30 but while there I managed to snag an iLive soundbar with built in sub for $49.99. Random clearance deals > overhyped BF deals as far as I'm concerned.

Ok to be fair, the dude only brought out 2 from the back. It was clear there weren't many but it made me think why they didn't bring those two out before for some reason. What I'm thinking is maybe they were for ticket holding customers but those ticket holding customers never showed up or just changed their mind not sure. Maybe they just wanted to get rid of them.

A few years ago I saw a guy with a ticket tv and he left it on the floor , walked away for a second and someone took it. Honestly, I thought he just gave it up because he walked away away and then he comes back like where is my tv lol. I was thinking that was pretty stupid. Later in the cash register I saw the other guy that picked it up walking out with the tv. I aint no hero so I didn't say shit. But yea you don't walk away from a doorbuster deal lol.

Sorry, when I remember BF to be awesome deals, I used to do this and didn't get full 2x value, but used to get very close.

I'm not sure why people do this, but they do.

I bought a $500 tv and sold it for 800. Hard drive was 100 and sold it for $150. etc.

I don't bother doing this anymore. I just buy it if I"m going to use it or for gifts now but I know it's possible.

Ah didn't see this before, you're probably right, nowadays maybe not worth it.

I didn't buy a single thing on Black Friday.

Same here, all year thought I could afford a decent latest generation HDTV on thanksgiving, and after seeing them, deep inside I just couldn't drop some coin. Just like any business, the retailers have realized the need to squeeze out more money from people's pockets, by using Black Friday as an opportunity "

last line is absolutely true

It was ok, i got some good deals but not many great deals

BF is more heavily promoted now than in the past so more people are participating, more demand naturally leads to higher prices. The good thing about all the heavy promoting of BF is that most places go live online early Thanksgiving morning when im getting up to put my turkeys in the smoker so i get my shopping done by 9 am thursday

Black Friday is getting progressively worse every year since 2006. There are relatively few deals to be had anymore other than on Video Games, that's it. TV's are starting to hit their lowest sustainable cost/production level also so we're not seeing big discounts like we use to.

Just wait until next year, BF will be even worse and the best deals will once again be on Video Games and Consoles/PCs.


SlickDeals is also not the same as it use to be, the HP Touchpad firesale introduced thousands of new shoppers to this site which produced an atmosphere where regular prices are becoming FP material and SD itself turned into an ad generating revenue model. The true spirit of SD died about 2 years ago..

Reselling itself also died about 3 years ago. Ebay started increasing prices, the economy hit most people's pocket books, and technology increases led to more availability of electronics for all which was the main thing resellers would sell. One year I could sell a 32'' LCD for $300 that I purchased for $230. The following year a better version of that 32'' LCD could only fetch $215 and I'd purchased it for $185. A 50% decrease in potential reselling profit. I use to sell Quad Core refurbs for $450 and today people only want to pay $275-300. I quit reselling 2 years ago, and I'm sure most other resellers who have a full time job have also, it's just not worth the time or stress to make 30% of what we use to make with fewer customers.

Buying to resell. Not that anyone cares, but i need somewhere to rant about this BF because compared to last year for me it SUCKS.

Last year I got this list from Target and American TV (local electronics store in IA)
-2x 46" Westinghouse from Target $298
-2x 19" Coby from American $74
-2x Nikon Cameras from Target $99
-1 PS3 160GB Bundle from Target (kept, ended up being free)
-2x Acer Netbooks from Target $157
-2x LG Blu Ray Players from American $49
Sold it all on CL. Made a nice profit. My brother was with me, which is why we bought 2 of everything.

<rant>
This year several things held me back:
-Could not go to B&M stores this year since standing in line would impede family tradition (thanks a lot retailers for opening 4 hours earlier than last year)
-Tried to get in on Discover price matching (they confirmed they WOULD cover Black Friday) but by the time we got that sorted out, we weren't able to get the card in time :(
-Was planning on trying for all the Amazon deals but with one exception I failed miserably. Probably has something to do with the spotty connection up here in northwoods WI

So this year I have bought a grand total of 4 things for resale and 2 weren't even on BF:
1x Seiki 40" LED from TigerDirect $199 after mail in rebate
1x Haier 32" LCD from Amazon $97 Lightning Deal, still amazed I got it
-2x Wii U consoles on release day

Things I tried for/missed
-Hiteker 50" Amazon $288 (three computers, one crashed and burned as 30s before deal went live, one got on waitlist but didn't get it, and one got waitlist full)
-Vizio 60" Amazon/Walmart completely failed again on Amazon, unaware of Walmart online sale until it was OOS for good :( (was going to keep this one for the family to replace a freaking tube TV.)
-Toshiba 40"/TCL 42" $179 Amazon - This one I am legitimately MAD about because I thought they would be lightning deals. But no, instead Amazon decides to slip it by me by announcing it on their Facebook page (never go on FB). By the time I found out about this they were long OOS :mad:
-Chose not to order any TV under 32" this year, but now wishing I would have gotten 24" Orion from Walmart.com for $78 just due to the lack of stuff I got.

So, I went from being able to go to B&M stores to not being able to, to being able to price match with Discover to not being able to, to being able to get online deals to missing them. To say the least, it has been a disappointment. I was glued to my computer on Thursday whenever I could be and stayed up all night Thursday/Friday and thankfully I have the 40" Seiki to show for it.
</rant>

Before anyone knocks me for the time I spend on this, I'm just a 16 year old kid with some entrepreneurial spirit. That's all.

BY FAR THE Worst!

BOYCOTT WALMART & SUPPORT STRIKING WORKERS.

Didn't read this whole thread, but I'm glad this was brought up this year for the first time. I've been dissecting the scans for a week in perpetration, and the only deal worth waiting for at all was the 8pm door buster at Sears (the 50" LED), which I missed out on. I swear I kept scanning and scanning because I couldn't possibly believe there was no store with multiple decent deals worth fighting the crowds for, but it's true. Every store just marked off 20% on all the crap they wanted to get rid of and called it the sale to end all sales. The only, and I mean only, store I saw that had multiple good deals worth going for was Walmart, and even those were mostly on the small gitchy stuff that no one really wants or needs, but will buy because its a good price.

On the plus side, I no longer feel like I need to waste my family time every thanksgiving for this garbage.

Worst by far. There really isn't a need to waste your own life by standing in line or scarfing down Thanksgiving dinner. The retail stores don't respect us, so we shouldn't respect them.

Push for online everything, save on S&H, tax and get the better price. But most importantly, don't fall victim to the scams. There was barely a handful of worthy items to buy this year. Barely is being kind too.

Worst by far....didn't hear of hardly any stampedes or riots. Lame.

I think its all relative. Housing is returning (my house has appreciated over 100k in the last 9 months) jobs are becoming a little more plentiful. Companies however are still suffering the effects. Sharp has lost billions, so hasnt Panasonic and other makers. I think we are just seeing a normal cycle. they cant afford to give us rock bottom any more. And while I LOVE to get a deal just like the next guy, I think paying a few bucks more to get things back on track is worth it. And finally, this like many things in life is a cycle. Give it some time, things will get better and when the money is flowing again..... well you know what will happen.....

Let's hope for some decent Cyber Monday deals. I'm still looking for a good deal on an ssd with good performance and reliability (aka not ocz). Did pick up a few things but didn't seem like "amazing" deals, just good.

I judge BF by numer of news report on people getting trampled, shot, and robbed. This year, I did not see or hear much of it, so it was a bad year indeed.

So you help workers by boycotting their employer? Doesn't that mean the employer has less money to pay them?

Perhaps if the employees didn't like their working conditions, they would work somewhere else? Nobody is forcing them to work at wal-mart. I used to work retail, did it for three years and decided it sucks so I left to work somewhere else.

Thanks to labor unions striking, hostess is no more, and 18,000 employees are out of work. The labor bosses said that at least it sent a message, meanwhile they go home to their mansions celebrating their victory, while the boycotters cheer them on: The working class wins again because another oppressive employer is gone!

LOL, yup. I was in shock when I found out my young coworker still looks at % off MSRP :omg:

Yup I got some good games from microsoft on last night. However that was after black friday. So it didn't count as black friday.

Great comments. repped:D

Next one will be better. Obama got re elected, you know.

Lame....nothing I needed or wanted. Love to look at the fools standing in line to wait to buy junk that is marked down from overpriced to retail......

You're so lucky. Trying three lighting deals on Amazon. Within less than 2 seconds, all sold out.

dont hate on OCZ :)

As other people's have pointed out, lots of stuff $10-$20 off, lots of DVDs, games, CDs, clothes, etc... But why shop BF for that, other than maybe to cruise in a few hours after the crowds disappear and grab a few things you were going to buy anyway?

If you are looking for bigger ticket items marked down 25% to 50% below SlickDeals prices, this BF was pretty sad. I thought the Toshiba 50" LED for $299 was worth trying for, but my store only had 4, so they weren't very serious about handing out door busters.

i think you mean YObamo, or MObama or whatever either way he sux. :(

I'd rather have lessor discounts on a lot of items than huge discounts on a few things that will just end up being bought up by resellers anyways.

Most of the best deals happened online Thursday Morning however.

I got more than I expected myself, but did not buy any big ticket items.

Disappointing Black Friday. Even Newegg's best sales (which still sucked) were sold out within a few hours of going live ($90 3TB Seagate hard drive, $60 120GB Kingston HyperX SSD, etc.) Going out and risking getting stabbed for the last of four sale PS Vitas just isn't worth it.