Archive for the 'Black Friday' Category

WALMART KICKS DOORBUSTERS SHUT…

Monday, November 16th, 2015

Seven years after Walmart employee Jdimytai Damour was trampled to death by the stampede of shoppers in the blitz line busting through the doors, Walmart has decided that Doorbusters were simply too literal. Bill Blare, reporting in No more doorbusters at Walmart at Junior College, writes: Wal-Mart said that stock will include more than a […]

CYBER FRIDAY FOR THE BLESSED…

Sunday, November 15th, 2015

Braving hypothermia huddling in line on a long cold night them fighting to avoid being trampled in the mad rush to wrap your arms around a really cheap flat screen television are declasse. Forget Cyber Monday, Walmart is not waiting to snare those on the other side of the digital divide to boost Black Friday. […]

WALMART LAUNCHES TOY WEEK/BLACK FRIDAY…

Friday, August 28th, 2015

Ho! Ho! Ho! The holiday shopping season starts Friday, 4 September, at Walmart, nearly three months before Black Friday and a whopping 112 days before Christmas. Krystina Gustafson, in Wal-Mart’s Holiday Layaway Program Begins Two Weeks Earlier for NBC News, breathlessly tell us” Wal-Mart shoppers will be able get a head start on their holiday […]

I’M THINKIN’ FAUX SNOOZE WILL IGNORE THIS…

Thursday, November 28th, 2013

From Mother Jones: In case you haven’t noticed, Black Friday isn’t just on Friday anymore. The retail industry’s high-density mass of starry lights, Santa dioramas, and door-buster shopping deals really ought to be renamed the Black Hole—it just keeps sucking up everything around it. That holiday known as Thanksgiving? Pretty much gone. Especially if you […]

STAY HOME, SHOP LOCAL AND BE SAFE…

Thursday, November 28th, 2013

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

JUST IN TIME FOR FESTIVUS…

Monday, November 28th, 2011

WALMART JACKS UP NEARLY 2,000 TOY PRICES…

Thursday, December 16th, 2010

Ho, ho, ho. Guess what Walmart did only days after Black Friday? It jacked up the prices on nearly 2,000 toys. I guess that the Grinch decided that the sales figures were just too low and that he had been do something quick or risk losing his stock options. From Bloomberg: Wal-Mart managers in the […]

DOORBUSTERS ARE NOT JUST FOR WALMART…

Monday, December 6th, 2010

In the category of the-problem-is-not-just-Walmart,-Walmart-is-simply-the-greatest-offender-by-virtue-of-its-size I offer this video of a trampling — thankfully with no reported serious injuries — at a Target store in North Buffalo, New York. From Sociological Images: There is an analysis to be made here, and it involves something about American materialism and the orgy of consumption that is called […]

WAS IT A GOOD DAY BECAUSE NO ONE DIED…?

Sunday, November 28th, 2010

After Thanksgiving dinner at my brother’s house, the women in my family gathered around the table to sort through the Black Friday ads and guess what. They decided that there was nothing in the ads that was worth getting up in the middle of the night to fight for. You get the idea. Via The […]

Special Black Friday open thread.

Friday, November 26th, 2010

So how are things down in the salt mines today?

I’d rather spent the night at an after hours bar with the drunks.

Friday, November 19th, 2010

I got this note (reprinted by permission) after my last couple of posts about Walmart’s traditional Black Friday scam: WalMart got that huge increase in earnings by the stores cutting payroll deeply. Our store has not replaced any of the numerous people who have quit in the last few months. And now we’re going into […]

DOORBUSTERS IS AN UNFORTUNATE WORD…

Sunday, November 14th, 2010

The key phrase, printed in tiny disclaimer type at the bottom of the ad is: All items in this advertisement are available in limited quantities. Sorry, no rain checks. It is reasonably safe to assume that if you’re not in the first rush through the door, you’re not getting any. We all know what that […]

MIGHT AS WELL BE BAD THIS YEAR…

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

Growing up in the Hess household, the Christmas-morning rule was one, and only one present could be opened before breakfast (after I opened everything while the house slept one year). My worst year was in my early teens when I picked a box of briefs. Walmart says there will be more of that this year. […]

HOW MUCH CAN THEY NOT AFFORD TO LOSE…?

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Last month it was the books, taking food out of Sarah Palin’s children’s mouths and crushing my hopes to ever become obscenely rich and obnoxious as the author of best-selling thrillers that Hollywood directors would fight over to option. But now they’re slamming each other over the feckin’ Easy Bake Oven? In what is emerging […]

EIGHT DAYS AND COUNTING…

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

Here’s a writer’s rule of thumb. When you read an assurance that “the following story is fictional and does not dipict any actual person or event,” you can bet the mortgage that, while license is taken, that the writer(s) are working from a news story. Happy Black Friday Walmart. Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.