What do you get when you combine “doorbusting” savings, early Black Friday shopping hours, price-match guarantees and a smartphone app that lets you check — while in the aisles of one store — the competing price of products on the Internet?
Well, you get very confused.
Two years ago I made my first foray into the world of Black Friday shopping. It, along with the birth of my children, was an experience I’ll never forget.
(Understand, please, that I was in the waiting room when the kids were born. That’s the way it was done back then — “Come get me when it’s over.”)
That’s kinda the way I approached Black Friday — as an awed, frightened sideline observer waiting for someone to tell me what was going on.
Most people are seeking out the best deals on HDTVs. I was seeking out the people who are seeking out the best deals.
And I contend that if social scientists ever want to study the modern day hunter/gatherer — female version, mostly — they should set up their cameras at Target, Macy’s, Penney’s and any other store when the Christmas shopping season breaks loose.
I’m not being sexist. But any guy in the stores for Black Friday shopping is mainly serving as muscle (to grab the other end of the 50-inch TV box) or as protector (“stand here and don’t let anybody take anything from the cart.”)
As you know, the action once started in the wee hours of the day after Thanksgiving. When I did this same column two years ago I arrived at Target at 4 a.m. only to find that I was about five hours too late for getting any good deals — although I did score a $9 Dirt Devil vacuum that is still in perfect working condition on the account that it never left the box it came in.
People that day had presumably lined up right after ingesting the turkey so they could get the deeply discounted electronics products and not-so-great deals on everything else. (In fact, one guy might even have had the turkey leg in his pocket, but I was too tired at that time of night to ask.)
With the economy still bad (when isn’t it?) and people extremely price-conscious, stores have moved up and up the date of their seasonal sales. It wouldn’t shock me — although it would offend me — if in a few years Black Friday started on Good Friday.
In recent years, consumers have discovered something that stores wish they hadn’t: sometimes the great discounts on Black Friday are just ordinary deals on the everyday Internet.
That’s why many stores are now guaranteeing they’ll match any lower online price — while, I assume, hoping consumers won’t ask them to. Not that you could find a store employee to ask about matching a rival price.
You can bet there’s an app for that — but I usually go by the broad, automatic opinion that most apps are crap.
But I have to say that the iPhone app developed by Amazon.com for comparison shopping is nothing if not entertaining. Much more entertaining, I have to say, than the Flightlight and iHandy Level I recently installed on my phone.
So when I showed up at Target — this time around 9:30 p.m. — on Thanksgiving night, I had my iPhone charged and ready and my Amazon app up on the screen. (I also had my daughter, Megan, along in the event the Amazon app didn’t work and I needed to check if it was me or faulty technology.)
My first price-checked product: a 40-inch Westinghouse LED TV that Target was blockbusting at $349.99. (I’m using the prices to the penny in tribute to all the retailing geniuses who think consumers don’t realize it’s really $350.)
Amazon’s price, according to the app? Bzzt! The app couldn’t find the comparable product on the Amazon website. Aw! I was so disappointed.
I later checked online on my computer and Amazon had 40-inch Westinghouse TVs for anywhere from $368 to $429, although I couldn’t tell which was the exact one Target was selling.
That’s the practical beauty of the Amazon app when it works. You are supposed to be able to scan a product’s bar code and a few seconds later you are supposed to get prices from Amazon’s Internet site.
It did find a Samsung 32-inch LED TV ($247.99 at Target), which was the same as the Internet price. But the app couldn’t give me the price of a doorbuster $19.99 Memorex DVD player; a Totes Elements Arm Wrestling Pro game ($15); a 40-inch Element Electronics TV ($279.99); My First Disney dolls ($19.99, regularly $34.99); or a Black & Decker 700 Perk Watt Blender that Target was willing to sell me for $19 (it was $29.99.)
The app that I was so excited about mostly didn’t work.
Plus, in order to get the app to search for a price, as I said, the consumer has to scan a bar code. This isn’t easy since it requires a very steady hand and sometimes lying on the store’s floor with everyone looking at you.
I also have to say that the Ultimate Disney Princess (doll) Collection, Derek Jeter’s (fully clothed) calendar and a 40-inch Sony Bravia TV didn’t appear much cheaper on the Internet when the app did work.
It’s always best when you end a column with an insightful remark. In this case I’ll have to borrow someone else’s. “Dreams come true every day,” said a guy who had just scored a Dirt Devil.
I hope he has a lounge chair to put it behind.