Friday, November 28, 2008

Black Friday -- I'm on it! Catching deals on the web

It's 5:55 a.m. and I'm on the web looking for deals. After all, while this is the biggest shopping day of the year, it's also the biggest shopping day on the Internet, at least according to an analyst on the Today Show.

5:59 .m. Ahhhh ... my first glitch ... many of the pages at walmart.com keeping sending me to a "scheduled maintenance" section. Hmmmmm .. has their system crashed already? or are they just now putting out the deals?

Yesterday .. I put a set of pajamas in my "cart" and then when I went to the "checkout", they were gone! So don't think people just steal from you in the aisles -- it's "game on" in cyberspace too.

6:18 a.m. Searching Target.com for kids' toys. How is it that when I click "boys gifts under $15" I get a bunch of shirts and ties? And a Steelers shirt. What kind of toys are those? Those won't fly under our tree as toys.

OK .. where are the deals? A lot of the main store sites look much like they did late yesterday, even though many promised better on-line deals when the cyber doors opened at 5 a.m.

Still searching ..

6:34 a.m. Target.com now wants me to take a pop up survey! Do they know what day it is? Why are they sending pop-ups when time is of the essence?

6:38 a.m. Samclub.com is running out of stock. Some of their good electronics deals -- digital picture frames and TVs -- are now showing "out of stock" instead of "available" as they were at 6 a.m. Guess I waited too long.

6:42 a.m. Quite a few websites pushing 42" HDTV sets for $699 so if you don't get one in the stores, don't fret. They're almost all the same size. K-mart had the best advertised deal with a 50" 1080i set for $799 but I'm guessing the "limited quantity" at the stores are not only gone, but already set up in someone's home .. hopefully tuned in to Channel 3.

6:44 a.m. Guitar Hero 3 for $74 is now showing "low stock" on samclub.com. First site that I've seen that has actually updated its items as they sell .. other than "unavailable."

6:45 a.m. Found a great deal on digital memory at Kmart.com. a 2GB memory card is going on-line for only $6.99. Clock here to get it.

6:47 a.m. My first big buy! Kmart.com has a 7-foot pool table for $249. The description says that it weighs 259 pounds .. so if this were a turkey, it's only 99 cents per pound!

6:54 a.m. Nevermind. The shipping is $219. When the shipping is nearly as much as the item, it's time to drive to the store.

6:59 a.m. JCPenny.com has "screenbusters" to counter all of the "doorbusters" out there. Clever. It has the best layout of all the sites I've visited so far, at least when it comes to navigating their deals.

7:04 a.m. KMart.com now offering 2-for-1 on jewlery. Getting two sets of earrings for my wife for under $10. Plus, if you spend at least $20 on jewlery, they give you a $20 card for coffee.

7:11 a.m. Been bouncing around .. not finding any can't-believe-it deals .. although a reporter at the Today Show just said that 42" HDTV sets are everywhere for $699. Wow, wonder where she read that? (see my blog post above)

7:21 a.m. Time to check out at K-Mart.com but I get free shipping if I buy $49 in merchandise, so I need to find at least one more item that i want to buy. Hmmmm

No comments: