<p>"I really learned to love the Internet and also do most of my shopping on there. "</p>
<p>I love Internet shopping. This year, I’m using the Internet to make gifts out of some of the photographs I’ve taken. Much more fulfilling and meaningful than doing the Black Friday stampede.</p>
<p>Please don’t think that people in the Northeast are like this as a rule. We are just as horrified by this as the rest of the world. I am certain that there are good people everywhere, and there are animals everywhere. This could have happened anywhere…</p>
<p>I admit I haven’t been in Toys r us for years and the pink aisle ( do they still have the Barbie aisle?) makes me crazy- but what sort of idiot starts shooting in a toy store?</p>
<p>My mom, daughter and I have been going to the mall on Black Friday the past 3 years (since my daughter was old enough to enjoy it). We have a ball together, although I will admit we get there early and leave before the crowds get bad! We love to shop, people watch, enjoy the decorations, eat lunch, get a treat and leave mid-afternoon. It’s a great relaxing time for us to hang out together. We purchase a few gifts, but mostly just enjoy being together.</p>
<p>I avoid all retailers who advertise a few big “draw” items; I have no fun being in a huge crowd and I hate the dynamics of a crowd. People in a crowd get so caught with seeing other people get a “deal” that its crazy how much junk you see people stuff in their shopping carts. Do they really want all that junk? Much less do they really need all that junk??? </p>
<p>This is incredibly sad. Tragic. Disgusting. My prayers go out to the families.</p>
<p>I was wondering whether they would prosecute anyone, too, Treetopleaf. I saw a clip about this on msnbc.com. It was nauseating. Other employees tried to help the man who was killed, and they were also battered by the crowd. The police had trouble getting through, too, when they came.</p>
<p>Can you imaging sending your 34-year-old husband/son/father to work at Walmart one day, only to hear that he has been killed at work? </p>
<p>I have never been a shopper, and I jumped on the Internet shopping thing as soon as it started. At one point I had it as a goal never to step foot in a store again. I was having groceries delivered by an online service (now defunct) and using drugstore.com.</p>
<p>There’s not much I can add to the horror of this that hasn’t been said here already. Apart from the disgust that anyone would subscribe this to one area of the country (a comment I find appalling from a poster that I would never expect that from), I can only say that it’s time to step back from the idea that comsumerism is what drives our country.</p>
<p>I talked to a few people today that hit the sales at o-dark thirty…apparently, it is a tradition for a lot of people. No one in my family has that gene I guess.</p>
<p>I agree with the other posters here that are about the internet shopping. It is wither that or smaller, local businesses that I will patronize from now until it is over</p>
<p>I live near the Wal mart store, this mall is not a safe shopping excursion, has been bad for at least 15-20 years. The last time I ever stepped in this mall I was in Sbarros with my then 3 year old, heard alot of commotion police running in the mall. Found out later someone was killed in Victorias Secret.</p>
<p>I’ll fess up and say that I hit Black Friday sales for the first time ever. Our mall’s parking lot was only about 1/4 full when we left around 7:30AM. We really only spent a little over an hour and a half there. And the reason we did is because D1 is moving into her first apartment next week, and we were able to find some incredible deals on things she’ll need (comforter, pyrex, mattress set, things like that), so we went for it. We did save quite a bit of money, and with the crowds not being bad around us, it wasn’t bad, at all. I did manage to purchase a nice tool chest at Sears for DH (he’s never had one), but I paid for it, and they told me I didn’t have to pick it up today, that I could come back later this weekend or next week to get it, so I can do that when the waits for merchandise pick-up are less. But the whole transaction (with excellent sales help in picking out the right model) took less than ten minutes. </p>
<p>I did order a couple of other presents online. Like I said, I would not normally go to these, but there really were some excellent deals on stuff D needed for her apartment. And crowds were not bad. I will say that there’s no way I would have gone in a Walmart when they opened. D went to Target around 8AM (after we got home from the mall), but was gone only around a half hour - that included picking up several items.</p>
<p>My neighborhood in CT wasn’t that busy, except it seems for the Kohl’s parking lot and Best Buy (at least later in the day) The only store I went into was Gap because the parking lot was 1/2 empty and got 2 “buy one get one free” sweaters for my daughters.
Some retailers said they did well, others were very disapointed. I hope consumers are careful because if they spend too much and the money isn’t there, it’s just more credit card debt.</p>
<p>Funny you say this Gaby3…I noticed this summer ( in our seasonal business ) that there was a large jump in credit card sales from previous years…and for relatively small amounts of money. I did wonder at the ime if all of hese vacationers would find themselves in a jam at Christmas time</p>
<p>…It was a tragedy, yet it did not feel like an accident. All those people were there, lined up in the cold and darkness, because of sophisticated marketing forces that have produced this day now called Black Friday. They were engaging in early-morning shopping as contact sport. American business has long excelled at creating a sense of shortage amid abundance, an anxiety that one must act now or miss out.</p>
<p>This year, that anxiety comes with special intensity for everyone involved — for shoppers, fully cognizant of the immense strains on the economy, which has made bargains more crucial than ever; for the stores, now grappling with what could be among the weakest holiday seasons on record; and for policy makers around the planet, grappling with how to substitute for the suddenly beleaguered American consumer, whose proclivities for new gadgets and clothing has long been the engine of economic growth from Guangzhou to Guatemala City.</p>
<p>For decades, Americans have been effectively programmed to shop. China, Japan and other foreign powers have provided the wherewithal to purchase their goods by buying staggering quantities of American debt. Financial institutions have scattered credit card offers as if they were takeout menus and turned our houses into A.T.M.’s. Hollywood and Madison Avenue have excelled at persuading us that the holiday season is a time to spend lavishly or risk being found insufficiently appreciative of our loved ones.</p>
<p>After 9/11, President Bush dispatched Americans to the malls as a patriotic act. When the economy faltered early this year, the government gave out tax rebate checks and told people to spend. In a sense, those Chinese-made flat-screen televisions sitting inside Wal-Mart have become American comfort food.</p>