Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and after that, the infamous "Black Friday" shopping madness at retail stores.
It's been a decade now (and then some) since I worked retail, but I did get a few Black Fridays under my belt. On the one hand, we were a store front in a mall, and people definitely flocked to the mall for the occasion. On the other hand, we were not one of those big free-standing retailers with flyers in the newspaper advertising their insanity, so we were never that crazy-busy.
Taking all that into account, I gotta say I never thought Black Friday was that bad when I worked it. It's not even the busiest shopping day of the year. From my observations, that honor fell on the last Saturday before Christmas. (Yet was not entertaining as Christmas Eve itself, the day when people show up at your store and will buy pretty much anything you tell them to, out of utter desperation.)
Was I going somewhere with all this?
Only sort of. I was going to make the observation that with the economic downturn, this year's Black Friday ads seem especially desperate. I still TiVo (well, FauxVo) through TV commercials, but I've heard some radio ads, and seen some print ads that came in the mail, and everything has this tone of "please, please, please come shop!!!"
It's not surprising, I guess, but it is a reversal in my mind. Usually, it's the customers desperate to get out there and get whatever the year's cool new Must Have Gift is. This year, it's the retailers extra desperate to get you out there to buy something, anything, please.
Happy Holidays.
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