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Subscribe to RSSFrom Florida to California, Black Friday fever has taken hold earlier than ever as dedicated shoppers camp out in front of major retailers, several of which are expected to open their doors on Thanksgiving Day. NBC's Diana Alvear reports.
From Los Angeles to Tampa, shoppers are already camping out in front of big-box retailers, determined to be among the first in line for door-buster deals.
In Los Angeles, some hardcore consumers have been in line since last Monday, even taking vacation from work in order to save big money.
An estimated 147 million Americans will take advantage of Black Friday sales, 4 percent more than last year.
"This year's the earliest I've seen people line up,” said Jeff Cox, the Best Buy manager at a Best Buy store in Los Angeles. “I’m astonished. I've never seen that in my history in retail."
Why would a person spend 10 days camping out in front of a store? Are the deals really that good?
"People are like, why come, make a line. You're not saving that much. But we actually are," said Miriam Santamaria, who is proudly first in line at the Best Buy.
By Friday morning, managers at the L.A. Beat Buy are expecting up to 5,000 people. That explains why Miriam says the worst part about Black Friday is getting out of the parking lot.
In Tampa, shoppers starting waiting in line over the weekend at a Best Buy, hoping to get their hands on heavily discounted flat-screen TVs and computers.
Good things come to those who wait. But this may be taking it too far.
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that was pointless. the title made it sound like it would be a list of deals worth waiting for, not the crazy people with 2weeks and nothing to do.
Journalism is going downhill fast! Writers will do anything to get you to click on their title so they can flash their pop-up ads at you.
Hello folks, how many people will go out spend money they don't have on this corporate holiday and spend the rest of the year catching up and rinse and repeat the next "holiday" season?
I have an idea, how about getting together this year with your loved ones over a nice festive meal with no gifts? No pressure, no stress, just basking in the love and company of your family and friends.
TRUSTVERIFY...how about this year we do what we want, when we want, and you mind your own business????
You aint kidding, this article is a bait and switch much like the people in line will go through.
You have to be nuts, or crave attention to be in line.
Thanksgiving is EARLY this year.
Enjoy the day... there are plenty more opportunities to shop.
MA & RI have laws that prevent this nonsense... and I'm glad.
No need to scarf down a mountain of potatoes drenched in gravy just to stand in a long line.
the article is total propaganda, a free advertisement. shopping addicts, go buy more thing you don't need. consume, pollute and obey.
I get whatever I want from Best Buy without standing in a line for days..I pay the sales price also.
My neighbors son is a stock clerk at Best Buy and he with other co-workers always store 50-100 top items in the back for friends. Just wheel a cart by the receiving area door and they hand it out fast to you, then go to cashier. :)
This country is being hosed by the corporate machine. I'll pass on the insanity.
Good grief! This is so SAD. Thanksgiving is a time to spend time with friends and family. They are going to miss that to camp out for the opportunity to spend their money on THINGS?!
Must be a lot of homeless people. Who would put so little value on their time. You could spend the time picking up cans along the highway and be able to buy whatever you want at full price.
So like, here's the thing. People saying they're saving that much by waiting in line for 2 weeks. Is their time worth that little? Because the flip side is how much income one could make in 2 weeks, if they actually worked a job and made some income. Unless one really trusted complete strangers to not cut, or run off with one's tent while they were away, a 2 week hard commitment outside a store, would mean not going to work...
Oh, and yeah, the ones they'd be trusting, would be the same sort who last year blabbed about how "great" they thought black friday was, when they admitted to knocking little old ladies, and disabled people over, to get at the $250 TV first. Then went on to say how "great it was". Yeah, those would be the sorts these people would be trusting, to not take their place in line, if they actually left it at all, to umm, well go to work, and actually make some money :o
Lulz. The biggest yet? more shoppers than last year? I can smell a lie like a fart in a car....
$10 of fake, central-bank-manufactured money says we'll see lower sales this holiday season than last season.
I really think children are more spoiled these days and their idiotic parents will give in..so sales be up!
The deals are never good enough to camp out for a week ahead of time. These people must have no job to be able to do this or if they take vacation to do it they are nuts..
It's well worth waiting days and camping out to save $200 on a flat screen TV.
How about go to work to make over $200 instead of wasting your time camping out for the deals? I honestly don't feel its worth spending days camping out to save a hundred or two. I have much better things to do with my time. Don't these people work?
You would use eight days of vacation to save $200. I call that a savings. NOT.
Well let's see, I could work two days and make $200. Or I could waste my time and camp out and save $200 for a new TV. I already have a TV by the way. You tell me if it's worth it?
what a crappy written article...but then this is NBC and the TODAY show...
zero substance and ALL HYPERBOIL AND CRAP
Here are all the black friday ads you can chew on...
http://www.theblackfriday.com/
Hey Shosyn, You write more "crappy" than this entire crappy article! I think you would mean crappily if crappily were a word. And HYPERBOIL - wow what is that? A really big boil? Cause it ain't a word! And your capitalization & punctuation is just, well, atrocious. Seriously. Perfect for NBC or Today Show!
At least he provided a useful link.
Grammar police, please go away.
They are soccer moms armed with cell phones..hubby at work for 12 hours a day now...has to pay a wopper for the cell phone bills!
Average family ( yes children have cells too) cell phone bills are hitting over $300 a month!
When children today get older and apply for employment..the application will ask education grades? They put in with ink on paper applications..OMG it's GR8.
they gotta spend those welfare checks as quick as possible, and then cry 'poor mouth' all month.
tbh, when I took a class in mass media studies in college, the teacher, who formerly worked in a news room said that many people would be surprised if they knew how many "stories" get published, which really amount to little more then a PR piece a reporter puts their name to. She went on to say that one hopes they fact check the press releases they get, but this isn't always the case.
I don't think it's a stretch to suggest this article might fall in that category; though which company would be involved in the press release would be another matter entirely, and the more difficult part to figure out... Oh well, this is the quality of the news we get sometimes...
If they go to the bathroom do they lose their place in the Best Buy line?
Occupy Target all day all week!
Why you think they have on sale two weeks before Black Friday..adult diapers on sale?
They make $$$ anyway they can!
They probably pee in the streets. If the south side of Philadelphia is any account, and it does have a certain odor on the south side, that is what many people do; just up and defecate on the roads :o
What a waste of web space what idiot editor thought this was a story? I figured by the title it would be a list of great deals.
I want to know what kind of jobs and families these people have where they can camp out in front of a store for up to a week or more at the drop of a dime and if they're hiring. I'm sorry, but I have better things to do with my time than camp out in front of a store for a week to save $200 on a $700 TV that I wouldn't be able to watch often enough between traveling to and from work (and I wouldn't be able to fit it in my tiny little car, anyway).
The poor reporter who wrote this story must be really desparate to get readership with that terrible bait and switch title. Won't be reading your stories again as they are just that 'stories' not newsworthy at all.
The only ones who can afford to camp out for the opportunity to spend money on merchandise they don't really need, at prices they can't really afford are the ones who don't work for what they have.
Gee I think I'll quit my job and go on welfare so I can get some of those deals.
Did anyone watch the college and pro games this weekend in between all the car commercials? OMG, I woke up this morning wanting to get into a 60 month payment plan, higher insurance and a quick extraction of savings to pay taxes and down money. I know all the people seeing me drive this new car with intelligent up to date electronics and powerful enough engines to outrun the police will be enormously impressed. Yeah, right, sleep on the sidewalk waiting for a store to open. Not.
Perhaps these people would be better spending their vacation time with their families than trying to camp out for deal. This just puts pressure on the retailers to open earlier and earlier on Thanksgiving and not allow their employees time off with their own families.
Only in America are people stupid enough to do this !
This is the greatest country on earth. What other country has black Friday?
Though I don't consider black friday to be all that "great", sadly, I have reason to believe one could end up seeing this sort of thing in China, and some other countries as well. It actually sadens me to have to admit this insanity is as wide spread as it is...
If they were doing something that you clowns thought was well worth it you'd be defending their every move. But since you yourself wouldn't do it they suddenly become idiots.
What a bunch of whiny hypocrits you are. Who cares why they are camping out...
Are you camping out in front of Wal Mart?
Ahem, for people who actually do have jobs; to not show up at work, and camp out for 2 whole weeks, to save $200 off a TV set, would be rather irrational. Certainly if one makes more money then that, while actually working.
Reminds me of the person who went to see a Lord of the Rings marathon which was showing in another state. So the person up and drove off, never showed up to work, never called in, and watched a 16 hour movie marathon, only to then make the 2,000 mile or so drive back home to find out they got fired. Yeah, I'd call that pretty stupid too, and I had watched all 3 Lord of the Ring movies when they first came out. Not at 1 sitting though. But I wouldn't risk my career, or go driving cross country to go and see it.
So yes, I think people could call a 2 week camp out, for a sale rather stupid, if one actually has a job, and a life that's worth living that is.... Which of course does beg the obvious question, how many of these black friday campers actually has a life?
I've already completed my Black Friday shopping at a few stores, including Best Buy...
Waiting outside is for the crazies...
Ha ha, this is funny. Have we really lost the ability to see that something is just plain dumb? I give everyone the right to say that camping out on the street for days on end to save a few hundred dollars is stupid, even if I am doing it. Enjoy!
Typo alert....or is "Beat Buy" Best Buy's largest competitor in LA?
I have seen it every year. The people that camp out are the ones who go to the back of the line after the fact and sell to another person for a profit. Best buy used to give out tickets for items and people would get the tickets and go to the back of the line and sell the tickets for a profit. They are homeless or unemployed and it it all over the internet people how to do this.
Let's do the math here... Camp out from last Monday (11/12 - let's assume starting at 12:00pm noon) until Black Friday (11/23 - let's assume 5:00am) to save $200...
Hours waiting... 257 hours... Savings $200... Hourly rate (ignoring any overtime premium, strictly straight time)... 78 cents per hour...
People working in Chinese factories that are making this junk are getting paid more than 78 cents per hour...
yes but you get to avoid a holiday with your family and that's priceless
What do you do if you have to piss or @!$%#.
Ever wondered about that funky odor out by the dumpster, down the alley way, or in "the bad part of town"? You don't want to know :o
And to be fair, an employee wouldn't work 24/7, but assuming a full time laborer, of around 35-40 hours per week, we're talking 70-80 hours here for 2 weeks. And yeah I know many can't find better then part time, and many end up working 2 or 3 part time jobs at once... But anyhow, you get
$200/ 70 hours = $2.86 per hour
to
$200/80 hours = $2.50 per hour
And to that, there's no going home, no bed to sleep in, don't even ask about the showering or bathing after 2 weeks, having to rely on hand outs for food, unless one packed a 2 week supply and gaurds their stash against "fellow" campers who might steal. Oh, and unless we're talking a place like Tampa, it's friggen cold, with no heat. You know, the people put out by Sandy, who are without power, didn't chose to be without heat, as the cold came in; these people are chosing to be without it...
Why not join me and alot of other people and just make Black Friday into Buy Nothing Day. Who knows, you just might enjoy kicking back with friends and family and just spending time together.
"some hardcore consumers have been in line since last Monday". Really? Do these people not work? Does TGiving mean nothing to them? Are they absolutely without a life? Are they absolutely without a brain?
We're also the country so consumerist and greedy that we took a holiday dedicated to honoring dead soldiers and another one that honored those who served and turned them into Days Of Material Consumption. There's Christmas and Easter...both religious holidays that probably are attached to some kind of flier selling riding lawnmowers.
I suppose being a smart shopper and keeping eyes open for a good deal the other 364 days of the year isn't an option. That said, anyone who shops solely on price and aims at a shady brand of flat screen TV solely on screen size will rue it in a few months to a year when their Black Friday Special isn't all its cracked up to be.
As to value and quality, many of these people shop at China-Mart, erm I mean Wal-Mart; nuff said....
And if they also get their meat there, well if what I've heard about the use of green die to re-constitute the meat is any indication....
"That said, anyone who shops solely on price and aims at a shady brand of flat screen TV solely on screen size will rue it in a few months to a year when their Black Friday Special isn't all its cracked up to be."
Exactly... getting a "good deal" on a crappy Vizio TV is just not worth it... I wouldn't use one even if it was free the picture quality sucks so badly compared to Samsung, Sony, LG, etc
Either you don't have a job and have the time to camp but can't afford to spend, or you have a job and can afford to pay your chauffeur to wait in line. I don't fall in either group so I'll skip waiting in line for two weeks and buy like a sane person.
Deja vu. Here we go again, as the songwriter stated. Black Friday, aka, the time when the greedy give a dime to the needy. When will Americans realize, what does it profit anyone to gain the whole world or for that matter, to shop until you drop merely to enhance the bank account of another? Call it what you must. For me, November 23, 2012 is the day after November 22 and the day prior to November 24, by 79th birthday. I will simply thank God should I realize it and for Blessing me to be able to have more in one hand than I can hold in two. The most important thing I have is a reasonable portion of health and strength, something no retailer can ever render, even for free. Someone please tell me, where can you shop for good health?
Oh they are not worth camping out for. You can get the same items cheaper online with free shipping. Camping out is only for people who don't have computers or smart phones.
If you can camp out for days to save a few bucks on presents then you probably don't have a job and you probably shouldn't be spending your money on such presents.
I'm convinced people that shop on Black Friday are idiots.........my sisters included!
I'll wait til Saturday and support small businesses in my area, a lot less stressful!