Online shopping is how you do black Friday right.
Screw the crowds.
10 years ago or so I was almost in a mob turned riot on a black Friday.
We got there real early, think around 1 or 2 AM, we were the 3rd or 4th people in line and it was FREEZING (well actually it was in the high 40’s but a sharp breeze that was still one of the coldest I have ever been).
Well as the hours ticked by the line started growing, They opened at 6am and by 5am the line was 3-4 people wide and you could not see the back of the line unless you stepped way out of line to look.
As 6am neared people started to get a bit overcrowded, the line was stretching around the corner of the store and out of site (it was at least 100 yards to the end of the store). Then new arrivals started to try to jump the line and thats where things started to get serious. There were maybe a dozen people trying to shove their way into the front of the line with excuses like “I just want a video game, nothing like what ya’ll are wanting”.
As things were getting more and more heated the Police were called and showed up just in time to calm a full on riot (and thankfully one guy took a punch and didn’t fight back, that would have ended everything).
Then the doors opened at 6AM as the police were still trying to camp everyone and we were told the line was all the way to the back of the store and still growing!
Well we got in at this point and entered a new type of mad house, we found our items and were ready to check out in 30 minutes, sadly that was 10 minutes too late. The lines for check out grown in those 10 minutes from reasonably long to wrapping around the ENTIRE store! Not joking at all.
First you had to literally find the end of the line, this took way more effort then it sounds like, then once in line the trek had just begun.
People are going to think I am making this up but I am telling you, it is 100% true, the line for checkout weaved up and down every other aisle of the store. You could quite literally walk in the store, get in line and do your entire shopping while moving down the line to check out without having to hardly leave the line. It was a great way to check out other items you were thinking about along the way.
It took us somewhere between 2 and 3 hours to move through the line, we lost track of time.
When we finally did leave the store we were shocked to find that the fire marshal had stopped letting people into the store until someone left the store. So the line was STILL wrapping around the building when we left! They said there were over 1000 people in the store at opening and I think that was conservative.
That was the craziest black Friday I ever had. The next year this store had a fraction of the deals and everything was very well controlled but we were still in and out in less then 10 minutes lol.
After that we decided that the internet black Friday deals were just as good or better and have just done that ever since save for a few deals we could not pass up.