[A_CLizzy]

LMAO! Times are Tough!

[Bushido]

"The 40-inch Polaroid LED TVs are being sold at £139, down from £219."

Behaving like farm animals to save 80 pounds...

[JJ Roberts]

Serious question. I am looking for a Canon Rebel 3i, 4i or 5i with one or two lenses.

Best place in London to get one this weekend?

I found a brand new t5i with 2 lenses on eBay for 399 quid. Anyone know a better place?

[kosko]

One of the worst exports of American consumer degeneracy. People line up like farm animals here in Canada when we already have a sales holiday day in Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. Usually somebody in America dies today from being tramped by crowds, and yes its usually to save $50 on some old ass shit they are clearing to make room for the Christmas stock.

[Veloce]

Meanwhile in America...

I thought this was pretty funny. Props to this guy for calling people out. I agree with everything he says.

This one's better:

[dark_g]

The comments should be directed at the retailers not the people standing in line. The stores are the ones printing up flyers and putting out newspaper advertisement.

[slats7]

contrary opinion

https://ricochet.com/smug-disdain-black-friday/

[Veloce]

(11-28-2014 02:47 PM)slats7 Wrote:  

contrary opinion

https://ricochet.com/smug-disdain-black-friday/

Quote:

Black Friday isn’t for me. Neither is scoffing at the millions who rely on it.

Give me a break. That article is a complete troll job, making a case that the people that shop at Black Friday DEPEND on that day to do their Christmas shopping. What a load of crap.

I'm firmly middle class, and certain parts of my family are upper middle/lower upper class. Guess what? We don't exchange gifts or buy useless crap that either needs to be replaced in a few years or breaks altogether. I GUARANTEE you that any of these poor, downtrodden souls that are forced to partake in Black Friday spend significantly more than me or anyone I know for Christmas.

[Foolsgo1d]

haha, people who fall for these black friday deals are kidding themselves. You think the retailers give out the real good stuff on offer?

If I was a retailer and I had an option to ship a shitload of TVs at a price I still make a killing with, I would do it too.

Anyone who has worked retail with their brain switched on will notice a few tricks being played.

1: They make you feel like you 'MUST HAVE IT NOW!' Because deals on better TVs are rare these days right?...Right?

2: They buy products in large bulk quantities. Stack em high sell them low. The more you buy as a retailer the cheaper per unit it is to buy. Selling 100 TVs cost the company more than buying and selling 500 at a lower price.

3: You have the benefit of tricking the idiots to help you move shit you are trying to get rid of.

I worked for a retailer who sold power tools. Some units would never sell as well as others. What do you do? Make sure you buy more of this unit and reduce the price on sales for limited time.

You need to have good advertisements of the sale and bundle it in with a few other things you plan to sell cheap.


Thats it really. People never question how retailers can afford this. These products are not loss earners like say Aldi selling milk at 89p for 4 pints compared to other market leaders selling at £1.

Loss leading products are designed to get eyes onto others. This isn;t one of them.

[MidWest]

American globalization at work.

Feminism works the same way as it transcends borders and rubs off to the rest of the world.

How sad.

[The Lizard of Oz]

These Black Friday trampling videos always put a happy smile on my mug. I think it's a beautiful day.

I'm going to repost what I wrote about it a year ago:

(11-29-2013 06:46 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

Black Friday is one of the crown jewels of the American year. Far from being a sign of any sort of decline, it is a great day that showcases America's continuing strength.

There is nothing vulgar in the transition between the soaking sentimentality of Thanksgiving and the stampeding greed of Black Friday. It is a beautiful and exquisitely appropriate pivot between two modes that are equally important and necessary to the human being.

It is right to look back and give heartfelt thanks for what we have as we gather in the gloaming with those we are close to, for better and worse; it is even more right to then turn to the present and future and realize the burning rage of the need for more. And yes, more meaning more material things, more consoles/ipads/X-Boxs and other great products that are yearly churned out in the ferocious quest for entertainment, convenience and interest in the midst of the human being's terrible struggle to prevail over materials.

It is this implacable rage for more, so perfectly and literally embodied in the great American stampedes of Black Friday, that drives the human being towards progress in understanding and mastering the material world that confronts and thwarts us at every step. The seeming troglodytes that break down the doors of Walmart on a chilly Friday morning when it's still dark in a gladiator-like quest to attain that X-Box have a better understanding of the true nature of life and of the human being's place in the world than the scolds who mock and disdain them.

It has been noted by many literary characters that the American par excellence possesses the capacity for the most childlike unabashed sentimentality and the most childlike untrammeled greed, often in dizzyingly close succession. This is true. What is rarely recognized is that these are both superb virtues of the American character that guarantee our domination and supremacy going forward. And never is this capacity more vividly realized than in the great pivot between the Thursday and the Friday of Thanksgiving week.

[Bacchus]

Damn, I thought this was just an American thing.

[Hardy Daytona]

I was the the gym yesterday and noticed that it was damn quiet - nearly half as busy as it normally is for a Friday afternoon.
Then I remembered the Black Friday sales were on.
And for a brief moment I both chuckled at and lamented on how willing people were to abandon their fitness regimens to save money at the shops.

[Onto]

Imagine what would happen if the stores gave out those TV sets for free.

[Matt3B]

I think this was the first one in the UK. How this country longs to be America; it's really fucking sad. From the celebrity culture through to consumerism, the inhabitants of my country are getting worse and worse, and imitate Americans in any way possible at any given opportunity.

The thing is, as it was the first one in the UK (I believe), next year will get worse. I genuinely hope there are massive brawls and injuries for people who buy into this shit. They are absolute animals and deserve nothing more.

The funniest thing is that they're not even fighting over good brands.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

(11-28-2014 12:42 PM)dreambig Wrote:  

"The 40-inch Polaroid LED TVs are being sold at £139, down from £219."

Behaving like farm animals to save 80 pounds...

To make the irony greater, their eyes can't tell the difference between that and the 36-inch Polaroid Plasma TV that they've had before.

[FortyAndFantastic]

The retaillers buy in a ton of chinese crap to sell to sheep. Every one wins, maybe..

[kosko]

Mass retail is a shitty hustle these days. Most stores make all their profits in these laat two months which explains why they are so desperate to get people into the stores as many times between now and Christmas. Back in the day, when you had a middle class, you had a circulation of people buying stuff and large ticket items in the department stores frequently. They all are gone now so stores make money gouging fees and stuff from offering store credit/debt on branded credit cards, or selling Chinese junk for rock bottom prices. Unless you run a parasitic cheap model like Wal-Mart or run the fine line of thrift-quality like Target (or your high end) you will be bleeding money and barley making any profit (if at all). For many large stores now the most profitibale tbings they do is leverage their property ownings from large swaths of suburban wasteland they own from building stores and mega malls back when those lands were dirt cheap. Many struggling retailers are flipping thier land holdings these days to stay afloat.

To have a vibrant consumer culture you need a healthy consumer class, a middle class. These retailers helped undermine many business whom employed people for good wages whom would shop at their big stores.

So I don't feel sorry for the retailers. They ran off small business, local chain department stores, over saturated markets, and never wanted competition so they can all die in the beds they made.

[Foolsgo1d]

The USA has Black friday, the UK has black weekend. Aka black fridaaaaaaay-ish.

People are still out shopping for the deals on offer. I must have witnessed 1000+ men being dragged around by the neck behind their wives and girlfriends today.

[OBJ Snakebite]

"Black Friday is the day wealthy whites are applauded for judging lower-class folks who are just trying to buy affordable gifts for their kids."

https://ricochet.com/smug-disdain-black-friday/

[TheWastelander]

If people are fighting and going insane over TVs on sale, just imagine what they will do if there's ever a food shortage.

I'm glad I live in part of America where rifles and thirty round fuck off magazines are still legal.

[Praetor Lupus]

I'm glad I missed this, but the fucking Christmas market this afternoon was nearly as bad out on the streets.

[bojangles]

Polaroid TV's...fucking Polaroid..