Black Friday vs Cyber Monday
I saw some videos of how customers acted inside some stores during Black Friday and I am glad I did not witness anything. It probably would have driven me to do something outside of my character when seeing people trampled, other customers pepper sprayed, people destroying store displays or fights breaking out over a $2 waffle maker.
Honestly, I wanted to go Black Friday shopping this year but not at the craziest hour of the day. More for the experience than the deals because if I want a deal, I can score it on eBay for probably less than a Black Friday sale. My alarm was set for 5am and I ended up hitting snooze 4 times. I chose sleep over the experience. We finally woke up at 8am, took our time and then got to Urban Outfitters by 9:30am. It was not busy and there were not crazy lines and we were still able to get incredible deals on our purchases.
I remember when stores began opening at 5am years back and I thought that was ludicrous. 5am is now the standard where 4am is a new time but the thing that made me double-take was the fact that stores such as Walmart and Best Buy were opening as early as 9pm on Thursday…for Black Friday. What will beat the 9pm next year? 6pm where it cuts into the Thanksgiving dinner? I read in the newspaper about customers being robbed in the parking lot after making their 2am purchases. Shopping during hours not meant for shopping brings out the people you do not want to encounter during those hours of the morning.
One thing I really liked about the way Best Buy advertised was that they offered all of the Black Friday sale prices online. I think that was genius. Have an online quantity count for each product and then open up the sale at a certain time that webmasters can moderate the traffic and assure the site won’t crash. Obviously I think online shopping is the way of the future where retail brick-and-mortars will only see about 25% of the sales and online sales will be 75% of the sales.
For those worrying about clothing shopping and “I have to try it on first”, I’m waiting to see the first site that allows you to upload all of your dimensions and a few full body photos where you can keep an “online closet” of your purchases from Forever 21, H&M, American Eagle, etc. Then a “suggested clothing” section from your favorite retailers will compare the clothing you currently have, the style you wear and then suggest articles to purchase while displaying the way they would look on your uploaded images form fitting to the dimensions entered.
I know this will be the future but someone has to develop it and it will not be cheap or easy. Especially to create a similar API connection between all of the participating stores. I have ideas like this all day… talk to me if you are an investor!
If you have not purchased anything online before, give it a shot today since it is Cyber Monday. Stick to websites that are trustworthy. If you are going to shop on eBay or Amazon, look at the seller of the item first. Make sure they have enough “feedback” that shows you can trust them as a seller. If they have 10 feedback and 2 of them are negative, I would not trust them as a seller. This is the list of sites I personally would trust for Cyber Monday sales:
You can also check the Cyber Monday Twitter account and also this Facebook page. Another place I usually look for deals is Slickdeals.net. Hope this helps get you on the track of buying online today!
