Black Friday

Fewer than 32 shopping days until Christmas.

The day after Thanksgiving is now known as Black Friday and has been the top selling day in retail. (The day after Christmas has also claimed that spot.)

Safety is a concern as stores open earlier and earlier, as early as 4am (JC Penney) and even 12am (Toys 'r Us). Some 24-hour Wal-Mart stores might also be open Thursday or at least at 12am as well. Some Wal-Mart stores will allow "camping out" next to items that will be on sale but not available to cart until the sale begins.

The stores create safety concern by making huge savings on a seriously limited quantity of items and/or limited time of the savings.

Car dealers are getting in on the Black Friday buzz. I saw a news bit about it and it was never mentioned that maybe instead of a TV you could put a down payment on a better than average car deal. They talked about clearance of 2009 models but I've seen commercials for deals on 2010 models.

Verizon is advertising a netbook for about $30 online starting Thursday evening (two-year contract I'm sure). The service is where they make their money anyway, but almost full function laptop with small screen but bigger than smartphone, carry anywhere and go online. Try to find a deal that is not $60 for unlimited net access on top of $30-$40 phone plan.

walmart.com already lists sales for their 5-11am door-buster sale. I doubt they will refer to it as "door-buster" anymore since the tragic incident 2008 at a Wal-Mart in Long Island, NY. They make such limited great savings and there are only 2 stores close to Long Island (at least as of 2006). You enter your zipcode because the prices will vary.

Wal-Mart commercials already boast Emerson 32" LCD flatscreen TV 720p for only $248. This is good enough for most people, especially those still viewing standard definition. Make sure you don't want full 1080p before spending the money and end up wanting a new one again right away. Emerson 42" PLASMA 720p is $448 (locally anyway) and Sony Bravia 1080p 46" LCD is $798. Magnavox BlueRay player only $78. Nintendo DS Lite $98. They have an eMachine laptop for $198. Wireless Kodak ESP all-in-one printer that uses less expensive ink for only $98. iPod Touch $195 with $50 iTunes gift card. A Miley Cyrus Wal-Mart exclusive CD for $5. Over 100 DVD titles at $2 and over 30 Blu-Ray titles at $10. Will this be the last Christmas of the DVD? There's too much stuff to list it all, just go to their website to look at the actual print ad that will come in the Thanksgiving newspaper.

KMart seems to have online-only specials in the spotlight and not their black friday deals. I'm sure they can be found elsewhere online though.

Facebook has fan pages for Black Friday deals:

http://www.facebook.com/blackfridayinfo
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-Friday
http://www.facebook.com/BFAds

Happy searching, be safe, find deals (without the crowd mobs if you can).