Are you a Black Friday Shopper?

I bought ONE item...an InstaPot for a family member who hasn't yet taken the plunge.
(Does anybody EVER pay full price for those?)
$49 at Wally.
Normally I'm an Amazon guy, but Wally offers the same 90 day return window (in case said relative doesn't use it) and you don't have to mail it back.

I'm looking at Cyber Monday....but nothing is piquing my interest.
I'm thinking of downgrading my CFO from a Driod to one of those phones with a fidget spinner on the back, but I always pay cash for unlocked phones - so no Black or Cyber discounts for me!

 

i bought mittens and hanwarmers from amazon last week. should i have waited?

 

Bittersweet.
There's something gained but also something lost.
I feel like I lived through the the Golden Age of "Malls". I believe I'm witnessing the decline of brick and mortar retail.
I believe for the younger generation that has grown up with 65" inch televisions and stereo soundbars and an expectation of on demand entertainment, I've seen a decline in movie going.
Yes there is a lot gained. In convenience, saved time, but there are also things lost.

I remember when I was young, occasionally my whole family would "celebrate" Black Friday. I'm talking Aunts, Uncles, Mothers, we'd all agree to get up early, meet at a starting store and then just spend the whole morning/day shopping.
Sure it was tiring. Sure it was gross unabashed consumerism. But it was also fun. Something about the energy of the crowd, and the idea that you might just get this fantastic deal.

Malls have become nearly ghost towns compared to how I remember them.
When I was an adolescent, they were a social hub, being able to go to the Mall with your friends was a growing up rite of passage.

Something I miss with this cyber age?
Well physically browsing.
Online shopping by it's structure is very specific. Type in what you want, you see anywhere from 3-300+ versions of what you're looking for.Great. BUT...
I use to like to go to the bookstore. I might THINK I was looking for a particular book or particular title. BUT walking through the bookstore I might be distracted or drawn to something completely different.
Hard to have the same experience when you are shopping online.
On Amazon, if I want to buy a Tire Gauge? I'll get plenty of them to choose from, but I'll buy a "Tire Gauge'.
In the old days? I might buy a Tire Gauge at Sears, but I would also be walking past whole other departments, I might leave with a Tire Gauge, Slippers and a Sweater.
In short, it's hard to browse online.

 

Amen brother. Every time see the mall I always remember the great old days.. Fast Times at Ridgemont High!

 

Meh.
The King is Dead!
Long Live the King!!

Personally?
I'm pretty good WITHOUT malls.
Parking was....sub-optimal, as were the prices.
Oh yeah.....you could buy a $3 pretzel, or over-spend for a pair of sunglasses.
You could actually do the touchy-feelie thing with clothes and other swag - but then what if you got buyer's remorse? Or an unwanted gift?
Well....then you go back to the mall - right?
The "anchor" stores offered somewhat normalized prices, especially if you shopped the sales, but I'm old enough to remember when people were virtue signalling suburbanite mall shoppers for killing off small, downtown mom and pop stores.

A friend and neighbor builds/refurbishes horse drawn buggies for wedding and other events, and other friends are 'horse people' but at least not generally the sort who use large trucks and trailers to 'get back to nature.'
They will often yearn for a far-off, mostly fictionalized past but I do not know ONE SINGLE normally functioning person who would voluntarily go back even 50-100 years and live that simpler life.

Meanwhile?
People in otha parts of this very forum are waiting for the white smoke from the chimney that will herald a new ICE-free future for personal transportation that MAY leave millennials 50 years from now yearning for a far off distant past when you could actually drive your OWN personal car wherever you wanted....or shop for whatever you wanted....or.....

Darwin happens.
I'm not "educated" enough to know for sure how the carbon throughput for on-line is different from driving to a brick and mortar.....but I DO know that many cities are taking abandoned mall spaces and re-purposing them as community colleges, city halls, and other useful things.

That seems to me to be smart enough for now.....

 

I have a question not just about Black Friday but the entire shopping experience of online vs the human touch. What do you think is the outcome of these 2 process in the next 10 years or so as far as progress and development?

 

there are no more video rental stores, but movie houses have fared well

 

Speaking of.. There is popular drive in movie close to my house. Now I'm anxious to watch the new Top "Gone" this summer. That's gonna be a whole lot of fun. I feel the need....
Anyways what do you think about the outcome on moving forward with on-line and the in-store shoppers?
PS... this is still a Prius chat, if I may, I'm currently working on my Prius in the garage as we speak like what I mentioned to Patrick Wong last night. Although its taking a bit longer than the normal.

 

It is evolution.
But as I said, something gained and something lost.

Look how much time and how many posts over years I have made at Prius Chat?
I'm as guilty as anyone. BUT...
I worry about the future, as we more and more do everything from purchasing and shopping to socializing through the convenient prism of our computer screens and smart phones. It's small windows, into a huge world, that we increasingly don't have to see, smell or touch beyond keystrokes.

It is evolution.
And I'm not saying it's bad. But just with every step, things are gained and things are lost. For example,
I've always felt that there WAS a good side to horses and horse drawn transportation.
My opinion is you can tell a lot about how a person is, by how they treat their animals. So back in those days? I'd assume if you saw somebody that mistreated their horse? You could pretty quickly assume they were a SOB.
Plus if you wanted transportation back then? You had to know a lot about horses and taking care of them.

Today?
We have a generation that barely can change a flat tire, let alone know about harnesses, saddles, and the care of a horse.

I'm not against online internet commerce.
We may avoid having to park our cars at the mall. We may avoid overpriced pretzels.
But what is the world going to be like once Amazon owns everything?

 

Who's to blame in the new generations of NiNJAs?

 

Google and Facebook won't allow that.

 

I typically do not go shopping although my wife and children seem to get a kick out of going to a few stores in our small town on Black Friday.

Last year I did benefit from Black Friday. Our Microwave went out Friday after Thanksgiving ( probably from overuse on Thanksgiving day by our extended family). I went to our Lowes which was having an appliance sale for Black Friday and saved $150 on just the microwave we needed.

It was a Whirlpool just like our old one and the Whirlpool engineers standardized all the cutouts for their above the range microwaves. It was a very easy install.

It is an unexpected pleasure when product engineers standardize things like that so you can easily upgrade and it is still an exact fit.

 

Its a game of Monopoly.

Good thing you got yourself a microwave that your happy with the replacement.
In my case I have to buy a microwave frequently people that live in my house runs the microwave on and off every 10 seconds. either they mess up the microwave fast or blow us all up to kingdom come.