Well today is Black Friday. It’s a name that seems not that well thought out. You just know somewhere people think this has something to do with African Americans and not retail profits. We should balance this out with a White Wednesday or something like that to really confuse those people. On White Wednesday everything can be 50% off twice the price.
Maybe everyone got it out of their system on Thanksgiving and didn’t leave any retail excess for the traditional shopping crazy day of the year.
There was a significant absence of what appeared to be “deal” shoppers running around with sales flyers and hunting out specials. Most people appeared to be grazing rather than laser focused on their retail prey.
Even the wide screen televisions were sitting all stocked and neat with stupidly low price tags hanging over them.
The best conversation we overheard in our secret shopping was in the Target parking lot. Even though the parking lot was very quiet, two people were running towards the store and wondering how crazy it was inside. Did you not see the empty parking lot?
Let’s take a look at the individual stores and see how the crowds compare in our grossly unscientific survey.
Super Target




As you can see, the parking lot at Target has been busier on a payday Friday night than it is today. Except for the soda can and bag of trash tossed in the parking lot it was very quiet and unremarkable.
Inside the store was really very quiet as well.




Even this Target employee looked like he was praying for better sales. “Bless me Father. It has been ten minutes since my last sale.”




The coolest thing we saw at target was this thing hanging from the ceiling in the electronics section. Yes, we are nerds.




Walmart




The busiest section at Walmart was the electronics area, like at Target, but even then, not that busy. If a line isn’t more than two deep in the electronics section, that’s just a busy Friday night.




The checkout lines were nothing at Walmart. In fact they looked better than usual. Open registers waiting for people to deposit money in them.




There wasn’t even a run on the $19 guns. We must be in an alternative universe or time warp when the BB guns are not cleaned out.




Meanwhile, at Kohl’s, the lines from the registers wrapped around to the back and met each other. What on earth would make you stand in those lines for hours? We looked around, laughed, and left, like a lot of people, empty-handed. Should’ve gone to Tar-jay!
I’m with you, sometimes the lines there defy logic.