First Black Friday Shopping Experience

My sister, cousin and I were sitting at the kitchen table after Thanksgiving dinner, looking at all of the advertisements that had piled up over the last couple of days when we decided, hey, let's go shopping tonight. None of us had ever been before, and essentialy didn't have anything that we necessarily needed. We were all so baffled that this year certain stores had decided to open at 8pm, 9pm, 11pm, midnight, and into the early hours of black Friday morning. 7:30 rolled around and we decided to drive down to Wal-Mart, it was just a few blocks away and the doors were scheduled to open at 8.  There were people EVERYWHERE!! RV's were parked in the parking lot, hundreds were waiting outside in the cold, and there were people of all ages.

This is when it hit me ... CONSUMER BEHAVIOR ON THIS DAY IS OUT OF CONTROL.

We decided againt Wal-Mart and ventured to Target.  We had arrived after the doors had opened but there was still a line to get into the building. I had never seen anything like this before, people running through the isles, merchandise being thrown and sorted through, and carts were overflowing.  I had gone along for the ride and entertainment but my sister and cousin had actually picked out a few things that they would like to purchase.  They had even become disappointed when the products they were shopping for were all gone, I was more disappointed when I arrived at the check-out line to stand there for an hour.

We ended up venturing to 4 other stores and didn't get home until 3 in the morning.  The overall lesson was that people will do whatever for certain products once they have their mind set on it.