Black Friday Tv Report

[leadlike]

Just happened to be out shopping this morning and I noticed a big difference from last year's craziest sale day: Almost every place that sold tvs had plenty of them still in stock. Even the 'doorbuster' sale ones. Usually these areas are beyond ransacked at 9am. Instead, it seems most of the smaller stuff that I was going for was sold out. Is it like this in your area? Any other year I would see folks rolling out pallets of 42'' tvs-but I found that much more disturbing than what I saw this year.

[kx250rider]

Are we surprised? Up until last year, the buying public was using credit cards, which they'd run up to $25K or so every year, then refinance their houses for astronomically over-appraised values, pay off the credit cards, and do it again. This went on from 1995 until about 20 months ago. No more! And the wiser people who spent "earned" income have stopped spending that too. We're at the beginning of something that will eclipse the Great Depression. I hate to be negative, but the truth hurts. In this case, the American consumer has come down with a very serious, self-inflicted infection, and it will take a very painful series of shots with enormous needles, deep into the buttocks, over a long period of time, to cure it.

Charles

[electroking]

Maybe the disease IS the cure, after all. We shall see.

[rcaman]

as suze orman says now it,s a pay as you go society.

[waltchan]

Originally Posted by rcaman

as suze orman says now it,s a pay as you go society.

I picked up a doorbuster Sansui 19" LCD TV for $178 at Wal-Mart today, which is made by Orion. It's made similar to Toshiba. It was abandoned by a customer at the men clothing section. Your report saying that Orion-made Toshiba TVs have been pretty good in reliability, and I wonder if the LCD is the same thing?

[bgadow]

Over dinner yesterday my brother-in-law was trying to talk his Dad into braving Wally*World today to get a 32" that he wanted. Said that last year the place was so packed that they had armed guards inside and out for protection. I bet things are different this go around.

[Bill R]

Well The day is now over. I survived our Wal-Mart black friday. Recession, I don't think so, at least not at our store. Our sales were up substantially from last year. We had done about $340,000 in sales in our electronics department by 9 pm and still were going strong. That is about $75,000 more than last year for the entire day and about $60,000 more than the year before that. Lots more cash than usual as well. In fact I did nore large cash sales than credit sales. People would come up and just pull out wads of $100's. We went through lots of tv's, and small items. What we had left were $29 printers and $598 Dell computers. We even had tv's shipped from another local store to our store for the comming weekend.


Tired,
Bill R

[Brad Muller]

I've never been inside a Walmart store. It must have been crazy there though. Brad

[bgadow]

It occurs to me that there are plenty of small tv shops out there (or were) that would be happy to gross $340K in a year.

[Bill R]

I would have kept my service center if I was making $340K in a year.
Black Friday is an interesting thing. In our store we rope off the areas where the "deals" are located and bring the merchandise out about an hour or so before the sale. We have maps printed for the customers and the stuff is spread out all over the store. TV's may be by groceries, Toys may be in electronics, etc, but not always. It is like a big treasure hunt. We don't even know until the last minutes where or how many of an item is located. We have associates posted to hand out the merchandise and keep customers out until the start of the sale. At 5am we cut the baricade tape or rope and the customers are allowed in the areas. It sounds like a small heard of elephants coming through the store. The roar just grows and grows until about mid morning. Then it will slack off some while customers hit all the other sales. By Noon it is full tilt again until about midnight. You just have to be there. Our store will do between $900K and one million dollars in sales in this one day. We do over $100million in sales per year at our store.

Bill R

[Brad Muller]

That kind of profit would keep alot of Ma and Pa shops in business. Come to think of it.... that's why I've never been in a Walmart store. Brad

[kx250rider]

WalMart and Costco are the only retailers that are reporting any sales... It's grim at all of the malls, and K-Mart just announced that they're not going to survive this Christmas season, and they've put out the final clearance/out-of-business signs at all of the Los Angeles area stores

Charles

[Carmine]

For the life of me, I cannot understand this. I feel like I'm watching some kind of experiment on human behavior from another planet.

Believe me, I understand the idea of a good bargain. Sometimes I'll get 10% off Home Depot coupons, so I load-up on "staples" like masking tape, black spray paint, bags of cement, in addition to the one major purchase that made me use the coupon (like a $200 tool or something). I'll even call friends/parents and ask if they wanna get in on the deal, since they're usually good up to a $1000.

But to lower myself to "shopping-on-command" like some kind of lab rat, in the name of CHRISTmas no less, absolutely sickens me. My human dignity is worth more to me than a good price on some slave-labor piece of shit. I wouldn't act that way for a danish-modern Zenith combo-roundie, let alone some disgusting pixel-displayer that will be rotting in a landfill relatively soon.

Maybe I'm out of touch, but is $718.00 that great a price for this 37" TV?


Big whoop! $700 is still too much money for a TV, let alone the $1200 for the "big deal" Sony. I looked-up Black Friday ads from 2005, and the big item was 25" CRT TV's for $89. You couldn't pay people $89 to fish one out of the trash 3-years later.

feh!

[MRX37]

It's subjective. I bet if someone had a working CT-100 with an NOS CRT in it that he wanted only $100.00 for, a lot of members here would dive on a grenade to acquire that TV.

In any case, none of the crap they're selling this year is dragging me into a store. I'll go to one to do my Christmas shopping, and get a little something for myself, but no way am I going to purchase some big ticket item that'll just break in 3 years.

[Bill R]

Those numbers are gross sales, not profit. Actual profit is much less than the gross sales, but still substantial.
K-mart here is not doing well either. Their problems however are not related to WalMart. If WalMart does not change some of it's policies though I think they will follow in K-marts path. Low wages and crappy treatment will never change when there are hundreds of people stand in line for the jobs. I wonder why nobody complains about Lowes and Home Depot, they have done to the local "mom and pop" hardware stores the same thing WalMart has done to smaller retailers, but that is not a problem.
I personally didn't think any of the stuff was that good of a bargain. At least I wouldn't stand in line and fight the crowds for any of them.
While $700 is a lot of money for a tv, it may not be that far out of line for what it is. For example in the 60's a 25inch color set started at $400, and a set in a nice cabinet with all the bells and whistles and remote control was $700 to $900 dollars or more. In the 70's a Magnavox Star System set retailed at $1200. Considering wages back then a tv at those prices was a much larger investment than the $700 lcd set today. In 2005 crt sets were 50 year old technology and being replaced by newer technology. When lcd sets are 50 years old they will be dirt cheap as well.

Bill R