Black Friday and the Geek at Gomeler.com

Black Friday and the Geek

11.20.06 - 01:42pm

Over the last week people have been standing in line for lots of things, the Wii and PlayStation3 being most noticeable. While these two new consoles created quite a commotion they will pale in comparison to my favorite holiday, Black Friday. In the past, Black Friday was traditionally the day that companies records went “into the black” meaning they started cutting profits after paying off the bills and debts from the previous fiscal year. Now Black Friday is more of a deal shoppers utopia as all sorts of objects go on sale with huge coupons and rebates making it the perfect day to shop for Christmas gifts, especially for your local tech geek.

Recon

My goal for Black Friday has always been to be prepared and have a game plan. Remember, you and thousands of other people all the same goal; get to Bestbuy, Circuit City, Compusa, etc, before everyone else and snag the sweet deals. To beat everyone else at this game you need a game plan. I personally prefer to setup a war room and hold a conference with my friends. During this conference operations are planned, goals are set, and duties are delegated. Just like I do, you MUST recruit a few friends to join you on this bountiful day of shopping. Once you have assembled your posse, preferably complete with a token jew or two for effect, you must hit the Internet. About 3 weeks before Black Friday occurs, companies will begin to leak their Black Friday advertisements as they try to out perform each other in hopes of generating the largest crowd. For companies, Black Friday is all about impulse buying, which is what you must avoid by hitting the Internet. I have included my personal favorites in regards to hunting down those elusive deals.

For Black Friday alone, the dedicated Black Friday websites are great stuff for finding deals however I would also recommend checking out Slickdeals, TechBargains, and the Anandtech Hot Deals section year round as they tend to have some wicked deals. Now you have your resources so you must begin your search. I would suggest grabbing a cup of your favorite beverage and then begin coursing through the hundreds of pages of advertisements from the comfort of your own computer. Since I tend to purchase electronics on BF I focus on stores that specialize in this area such as BestBuy, Circuit City, Compusa, and to a lesser extent Staples and Office Depot. You will be surprised what you can find on sale during BF, I remember last year Wal-Mart had a sale on a dozen eggs for dirt cheap, I believe I bought them. Spend some time going over the advertisements and assemble a hit list.

Planning

Once you have your list you must break it up and assign values of desire to the various objects along with location. This is where your posse really will become handy. Lets say you want that sweet 32″ HD LCD from Bestbuy, your friend wants the 300 GB external hard drive from Bestbuy, and your other friend wants Season 1, 2, and 3 of Friends from BestBuy. Instead of having 3 of you stand in line, delegate one of your friends to be the hitman at BestBuy and move on! This is how you will get it done and all of you will be happy. I would suggest assigning people to visit the major electronics stores first as they tend to run out of stock and open the earliest. Ideally you want enough people so that you can have a person at every location to maximize the groups effectiveness.

Preparation

Once you have your group assembled, your hitlist created, and you are ready to go, you must wait. Like a lot of things in life, Black Friday is all about “hurry up and wait”. Within the continental United States Black Friday is notoriously cold, every year I have gone out it has been near freezing before the sun rises in Georgia. To help combat this I suggest around midnight of BF to go and visit your favorite 24 hour coffee shop. I personally prefer going to a donut shop but not everyone is blessed with Krispy Kreme. Once you have settled in, send someone out to pay a quick visit to your initial targets, if they report seeing lines forming then grab your coffee and donuts to go and make a break for your targets. Now depending on your geographical location and the ambient temperatures you may want to delegate a single person to be the teams resupply person, dropping off delicious packages of coffee and donuts and offering words of support to those that are standing out in the cold for the groups benefit. Just remember, don’t drink too much coffee or nature may call and there are no bathroom breaks on BlackFriday.

5 AM

By now the employees of your targets have already passed out the door busters which are rewards to the people at the front of the line, enabling them to receive certain deals without having to fight the crowds. Aren’t you happy that you’ve been out in the cold for multiple hours just to receive a little bit of paper? Now your results may vary but at my local electronics stores they tend to slowly let people enter the stores, usually in groups of 25 to 50. Your agents should be at the head of every line and they must run like Olympic sprinters towards the smallest items within the store. If you time this correctly you can usually snag one of the cheaper items en route to your larger goals which tend to be near the walls of the stores such as TVs, Computers, and stereo equipment. Once you have secured your parcels you should then go and get a shopping cart, dragging your victims with you. With the most expensive and rare items in your possession you can then pick up the smaller objects at your leisure as everyone else fights to get in line for what you already have.

5:30 AM

Remember that person that was the coffee and donut resupplier? This person should now check in with everyone and see who needs a pickup. Ideally you will want a station wagon or a truck to quickly run around and gather all the packages and drop them off at a central location. Once all the packages have been stowed away, move on to your secondary targets, my personal favorites being stores within the local shopping mall such as Macy’s and Sears. Here you can get great deals on tools, clothing, and surprisingly, some good jewelry (not from Macy’s..). These stores tend to be much less crowded and frantic than the electronic stores so you can now relax and shop at your leisure.

Debriefing

The shopping day has ended but the work isn’t done. Now you must regroup, distribute all the packages, and pay off everyones balances. Figure out how much everyone owes each other, pay off the coffee and donut supplier, and tally up your daily spending. To make the economical pain feel a little bit better I like to tally up how much I spent, figure out how much I saved, and see if I broke 50%. Sometimes it helps depending on how much you spent and sometimes it just makes the bills look even larger.

Tips

Group together as many people as possible, if you can get 2 people per primary target you will have a much better chance at landing the big prizes
Look for items that are free after rebate, especially stuff you know you could resell or use as a cheap Christmas gift. Memory sticks, CDs and DVDs are great options.
Shop around and look for reviews of the objects or visit the store a few days before. While it might look great on the Internet, you might not be so impressed when it is in your hands.
Sleep in late on Thursday and take lots of naps, it will be a grueling task on Friday and some of you may not be used to pulling all nighters. College students tend to excel during Black Friday.
Be wary of rebates that require signing up for a service, they are usually not worth the money in the long run. Also look for deals that permit multiple purchases per customer.

I hope you guys enjoy Black Friday, I myself have started planning out my day and hopefully I will walk away from this Friday with a few more electronics to furnish my new apartment. In regards to my apartment, my roommates and I have finally moved into our last apartment so hopefully their will be no more lengthy disruptions to my writing in regards to this website. Best of luck on Friday, let me know if you spot any sick deals.

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