• Black Friday: British shops are empty as customers move online
    49 replies, posted
I dunno, walking through Bristol centre just now it was pretty damn busy.
I can see why stores wouldn't be busy, it's just not worth it when online sales are as good or better. Managed to pick up a 1TB SSD for £150 so I'm pretty happy with that.
just finished a shift at currys pc world, was rammed all day accept a few hours in the morning around 8-10am. still was a good day, store took loads more than we thought. even though this is semi right as most of the people reserved there items online.
Both hordes and desolation? This sorta makes it look even more like a zombie apocalypse :v:
[QUOTE=cecilbdemodded;49198344]I don't know how it is in the rest of the world but yes, here in the US the population has been trained well. You'd be surprised at the amount of people who think a sale means they have to buy. I tell people "So what if that item is 70% off, you don't need it and won't use it" and they say "But it's 70% off!" as if that is all the reason you need to buy it.[/QUOTE] Sounds like my mom. Buying useless crap because of that % off thinking "woah, I'm saving money".
[QUOTE=*Freezorg*;49197985]Pretty sure the flag only displays the country you made the account in, doesn't keep track if you happen to move[/QUOTE] That got fixed months ago.
As someone working in an American Walmart, Black Friday is dying here too. We were way under our sales projections, as was the other store in town, and it was barely any more busy than a normal day. Good fucking riddance.
Did they even have any "door crasher" deals that aren't available online?
If you thought you were safe from stampedes by shopping online, think again. Only for online shopping, the stampede's target is the servers.
[QUOTE=wickedplayer494;49199605]If you thought you were safe from stampedes by shopping online, think again. Only for online shopping, the stampede's target is the servers.[/QUOTE] I was once crushed to death in a virtual stampede
[QUOTE=wickedplayer494;49199605]If you thought you were safe from stampedes by shopping online, think again. Only for online shopping, the stampede's target is the servers.[/QUOTE] I was going to get Dying Light for $13 but the cdkeys.com server was under heavy stress. It's probably a good thing. I would have sat on it for months
[QUOTE=Sableye;49197679]Those shops all look impossibly empty, people still go to stores, those look like they were taken before opening or something.[/QUOTE] they were taken before opening, the top one is the trafford centre in manchester even on a regular week day its pretty busy i didnt go because i have more sense but it must have been rammed today
[QUOTE=Complifusedv2;49197671]I'm happy leaving all that stupid fighting for discounts things to Americans[/QUOTE] I'm kind of sick of hearing about this because it's a dumb stereotype that doesn't even happen here. Maybe in [I]really[/I] dense urban areas where there is a shitload of people, but for the most part Black Friday is just like another shopping day with slightly more people.
Cyber Monday get hype
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;49199430]Sounds like my mom. Buying useless crap because of that % off thinking "woah, I'm saving money".[/QUOTE] My mom bought like 20 boxes of A4 paper. Got a "free" TV on it lol. Wasn't a Black Friday deal though.
To be honest most people I know treat Black Friday like the boogeyman. Nobody I know wants to go shopping on Black Friday, because of how much of a fucking nightmare it is. I know it's Britain so they probably don't give a shit like Americans do but I'm not surprised if nobody wants to go out on the day we hear about people getting killed over discounts.
I'm not really surprised that Americans are into the Black Friday so much. And this alone is a bad statement. But why? Because a single dollar counts. People want bang for their buck. Pick any field or a hobby, and it seems to me that Americans are usually very enthusiastic about directing you to make the right purchases. It's not a bad thing, and it's hardly exclusive to Americans. And not everyone has their money online. I'm guessing bunch of people in America transact in cold cash from day to day (do they?), which also might explain why Black Friday is as popular as it is. Sometimes, some Americans do go a bit bonkers about the Black Friday though. Personally, all the wide range of deals would drive me into a permanent state of inaction.
Last year, I had to work from 5:00 PM to 12:00 PM on Thanksgiving and from 4:00AM to whenever the store closed the next day closer to 11:00 PM. I walked out around 10:00 AM - I wasn't doing that and I started to feel the exhaustion from getting no sleep and having to work the rest of the day with no sleep. I don't think anyone lashed out at me because I'm pretty sure some rules were being broken, but people were irritated with me nonetheless. Black Friday is immoral and degrading for store employees. It's sad, really. I want this stuff to go away as soon as possible, and I want Thanksgiving to be a day for family, not a night for employees to prepare for the next day and especially not an extension of Black Friday with Thanksgiving Day sales. If anything, I want Black Friday to be better known for the red herring it is. [editline]28th November 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=BananaFoam;49201949]I'm kind of sick of hearing about this because it's a dumb stereotype that doesn't even happen here. Maybe in [I]really[/I] dense urban areas where there is a shitload of people, but for the most part Black Friday is just like another shopping day with slightly more people.[/QUOTE] That's probably the worst thing about it - it's not the massive thing it is and yet the store and the administration tries to make it out like it is. In fact, most people I know don't care for Black Friday because of the stereotype, and stores make no attempt to try and rival this idea.
[QUOTE=Bat-shit;49202218]My mom bought like 20 boxes of A4 paper. Got a "free" TV on it lol. Wasn't a Black Friday deal though.[/QUOTE] Eh. Paper's always useful though, 20 boxes you're set for quite a long time.
[QUOTE=Bradyns;49198031]As someone who has worked on the floor, it's terrible - you're left with menial tasks because managers need to find something for you to do.[/QUOTE] yeah uh i worked at a retail store for 4 years on the floor, including three black fridays, and i'm telling ya that if you consider dealing with customers better than dealing with menial tasks, you're fuckin bonkers. what do you have to do? block your aisles? bring out load? that shit takes up like two hours of your shift like nothing. you look at your watch and you're already done.
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