2009 November, 11th

Liliana Dumitru-Steffens

Last year, at at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, N.Y Jdimytai Damour, 34, was trampled to death by the Black Friday masses hunting for a Walmart deal. The event determined Walmart to change their policies on how to manage the crowds during the sales, aiming for an “orderly” Black Friday. Walmart stores will open Thanksgiving morning at 6 a.m. and stay open through Friday evening.

Best Buy has its own crowd control plan, the New York Times reports. For example, Peter Conway, general manager of a Best Buy in Westbury, N.Y., “has made a habit of arriving at his store at 7 p.m. Thanksgiving night to chat with shoppers lined up outside.” Best Buy has always sent out teams of workers to calm down the buyers by giving tickets for its door-busters. Tickets are given out around 3 a.m., one per customer. The strategy is simple, common sense:

“They know if they have a ticket, they’re guaranteed they have that product,” Mr. Conway said. “It creates ease of mind.” Popular items are marked with colored balloons.

The store also hands out maps to help shoppers find easier the isles they are looking for, and to keep them from running around sparingly.

Some Best Buy stores host a “dry-run” one week before the Black Friday deal, to make sure that the employees are prepared for the shopping madness ahead. With all the “early deals” this year, chances are that many customers will take advantage of the online offers to shop early and to avoid last minute deals. For example, Best Buy now opened the sale on their early Black Friday notebook deal with an Acer Extensa EX5230E-2177 Windows 7 laptop for $249.99. Best Buy ads and news about this deal flood the Internet – chances that the promotion lasts long are very low. Best Buy’s Black Friday computer offerings will include nine popular brands, plus over 30 laptops, six net-books, 17 desktops, and four all-in-ones. Additionally, Best Buy is offering $20 off any $100 online purchase if you pay through Paypal from now to November 16th.

Other retailers have posted their ads online too: among them Kohls – with discounts of up to 60%, Staples – with great deals for cameras and software, Amazon, Kmart and others. Every day, another Blitz Day deal emerges on the market, an ongoing competition between large retailers and smaller stores, which, unfortunately don’t get the deserved media attention.

For iPhone and iPod Touch users, the Dealnews app brings all the Black Friday deals, categorized, at their fingertips. The users can search for a store, list the time window for doorbusters, and find to the stores’ websites and addresses.

Twitter users can search for deals using the #blackfriday hashtag – Staples have already initiated Twitter campaigns to announce their promotions, with tweets like:

“Make Staples your destination on the biggest shopping day of the year! Get $100 OFF Garmin nüvi 255W GPS! 11/27. 6-10am.US only #BlackFriday”

“What holds 1000 photos,makes a sweet stocking stuffer & is only $12.99? A can’t-miss 8GB flash drive! 11/27.6-10am.US only. #BlackFriday ^LN”

It will certainly be interesting to follow these campaigns and analyze their success once the Black Friday madness fades out.

• 2010/01/20 -- CPSC Recalls Graco and Dosel Kids Products [Amputation Risk]
• 2009/11/30 -- How Social Networks Helped Black Friday
• 2009/11/30 -- Cyber Monday 2009 Survey: Customers Prefer to Shop Online
• 2009/11/23 -- Another Black Friday 2009 Sales Site Launched, Too Late, Too Fishy [Updated]
• 2009/11/08 -- Black Friday Deals Madness Coming Early this Year
• 2009/11/03 -- Walmart’s Attempts to Becoming “Price Leader” This Season
• 2009/10/29 -- Will They Bury Rob Walton in a Walmart Casket When He Dies

About the Author

Liliana Dumitru-Steffens is public relations consultant for Pamil Visions PR. She writes for Everything PR since January 2009. Previously she worked for My-tronic GmbH and Unilever Romania. Email Liliana at lsteffens [at] pamil-visions [dot] net.

See All Posts by This Author