BuyMoreStuff.org or How I Vanquished Black Friday
http://www.buymorestuff.org is an awesome prank. Next year, I might have the time to play instead of actually being stuck in a line to buy stuff 
Now on to the How To guide for Vanquishing Black Friday.
- Know Your Deals
- Plan Ahead
- Prepare For Cold
- Make Friends
- Get Food
- Entertain Yourself
- The Ticketless Go First
- Eureka!
- Craigslist
Know Your Deals
Search http://bfads.net. And remember to use Google a lot.
I wanted to buy a laptop. I found several deals, but one of the most attractive offers was an awesome Sony VAIO laptop with 1 GB RAM, DVD-RW and 120 GB HDD from Best Buy.
I decided to do a bit more research. Searching further on Google, I found a better doorbuster deal – Toshiba AS135-S7403 for $229. This also came bundled with a Canon photo scanner/printer/copier combo. Wow! I have never ever seen a decent configuration laptop sold for under $300, leave alone for less than $250, and with freebies thrown in at that. And to top it all – there were no mail in rebates – this was the upfront price.
So the plan came about – I was going to try to buy this laptop. If this was a hoax (it seemed too good to be real at that time), the backup plan was to buy the Sony instead.
There were some flipsides to this idea – there were only 20 guaranteed units per store, which meant that I had to be way ahead in the line. Also, the laptop came with only 512MB RAM, so I needed to buy a RAM upgrade.
Lucky for me, I also found this – PNY 2GB PC5300 DDR2 Laptop Memory Kit. Nice!
Plan Ahead
I had the Thursday – Thanksgiving Day – off, and I was in Seattle as well. But as I’m wont, I was lazy. The store was supposed to open at 5am on Friday, so I headed out at 5pm on Thursday. Little did I know that there ware other crazies inhabiting the same land as me. I was almost #40 in the line.
After some enquiries, I learned two things.
- The first guy in the line had shown up at 7am that day, and the second person came at 9am. Most others had started queuing up around 3 or 4pm.
- Because this was the Bellevue,WA store – the only Best Buy around the technophile infested Microsoft area – they were apparently used to having 3-4 times the minimum quantity for doorbuster deals. This I heard from two different people who had friends or family working at the store, who were also standing in line. While it was hearsay, I thought it was a logical thing to assume that they’d stock at least 40 laptops each – after all, they wanted to sell as many units as possible and this store was at the heartland of buying power!
So I stayed.
Prepare For Cold
Thanksgiving is the 4th Thursday of November. The temperature at this time of the year typically in low 30′s (Fahrenheit), just marginally over freezing temperature. Add to that the windchill factor and you are in for a treat.
I had worn 3 layers of shirt, a soft shell jacket, 4 layers of socks, 2 pants + gloves + a donut hat. And with me, I had a fleece sleeping bag.
Turned out this was just not enough… 
I was especially cold in my feet.
Next time (if there is one), I’ll remember to take a comforter and maybe even my tent.
Make Friends
Being friendly to those standing in line with you pays. It really does. Being reclusive is a bad bad idea.
Lucky that I was only 15 blocks from home. When it got really cold, I was able to go home and get a real sleeping bag filled with down. My neighbors kept my spot for me.
Also, they kept me company and saved me from dying of sheer boredom.
Some were generous and gave away Hotties to their newfound friends.
Get Food
Fourteen hours is a long time. We don’t quite feel hunger while sleeping in the night, but being awake is a different game altogether. And boredom also adds to hunger.
I had a few granola bars and water – but it just wasn’t as good as hot and freshly cooked food.
So some of us went out to Top Foods, a 24 hour grocery store, and bought frozen pizzas. Then we went home to bake it, and took it back to our line to share and eat.
The food was bad, and quickly became cold. It was still delicious!
Entertain Yourself
I took a portable DVD player and about 4 discs with me. Despite all the camaraderie and talking, the place was getting cold and windy, and I really preferred to slink into my sleeping bag and avoid the weather. While inside, I was watching episodes of Family Guy 
The Ticketless Go First
At 3am, the store employees started showing up. They eventually handed out tickets for guaranteed pick up of doorbuster deals. To my relief, the Toshiba was a real deal, and I also managed to snag a ticket. They had more than 50 of them, probably close to 100.
Around 4am, they started giving out free coffee and donuts. I’m not so sure if this was funded by Best Buy or whether individual food stores were giving out in the hopes of gaining some goodwill among customers and working the marketing angle – but it was a relief. The line had grown to 200+ people – probably even more than 300 by this time. The food/coffee only lasted the first 100 or less – which seemed apt since we were the ones who had been there for 10 hours or longer.
Everything was orderly thus far and the security was really well managed. Nobody was cutting in the line successfully (of course, many tried).
As soon as the doors opened, I went seeking the 2GB RAM deal. Again, I was lucky and found the last piece hanging along with the desktop RAM’s.
Then I went around to pick up the Toshiba laptop and a TomTom GPS unit that I’d picked up a ticket for. I’ve been toying with the idea of buying a car GPS device for over 2 years, but could never justify it because I knew how to drive around Seattle just fine. Now that I’m slowly moving to Vancouver, BC, I figured that a GPS will come in real handy in a new city. Turns out that I was right!
Eureka!
It was another 2 hours before I checked out and I was finally back in my car with all the goods at 7am – 14 hours after I started in the line.
Craigslist
I didn’t really want the printer/scanner/copier – so I posted it on CL for $40. I figured that I should be able to sell it easy for that much since a new unit was selling for $80 elsewhere. I got a few offers and I was able to sell it within two days.
Epilogue
- I was under the impression that both the memory slots in the laptop were occupied by a 256MB stick each. Turns out that I was (pleasantly) wrong – there was only one 512 MB stick.
- One of the two 1GB sticks in the PNY RAM bundle turned out to be a lemon. So I plugged in the machine with the other 1GB stick and now it has 1.5G in all. I didn’t have the patience to go back and exchange the item in the store – it would have been too crowded then, they probably wouldn’t have any in stock and would have to order it, and $54 for 1GB was still a good deal.
- Now the total cost has come down to (229 + 54) * 1.089 – 40 = $268. For a laptop with 1.5G RAM, Vista Home Basic, 120GB HDD, CD/DVD-RW and inbuilt wireless and all the works – this is an awesome awesome price.
- The only thing that I’d personally miss in this machine is the lack of integrated Bluetooth. A smaller screen size would have been nice too – but miniaturization adds to costs…
- Hopefully, it will get transported over to India before the month is out…
