OK, OK So I'm Full of It

I have to admit it, after taking time out yesterday to talk about how out of control Black Friday has become I waltzed right out and bought myself some Black Friday deals.  Truth be told I wasn't the only one, Mrs. Tanbi made at least one purchase too.  Master Tanbi didn't buy anything, but he doesn't have any money, no cards, and doesn't drive.

I will say I locked at a whole lot more ads than I made purchases.  In the last hour I've had at least a half dozen things up on my screen thinking "that's a good price."  But discretion was the better part of valor and I managed to avoid hitting "buy with one click" in nearly every instance.

When I am in a brick and mortar shop I would refer to that last instance as "winning."  Whenever you go into a store without a list, select something for purchase, maybe take it off the shelf and walk it around a little.  Then take the item and put it down as you walk out of the store with nothing: that's winning.  The final hour of my Black Friday shopping was full of wins.

There's a little consolation in the thought that I didn't buy anything today that I wasn't going to buy anyway, and all of those things were part of limited time sales - so I saved a little money.  I think part of the idea behind Black Friday is to get you to impulse buy.  I managed to avoid that in every case.  I'm not so naive to think that's a total win for me, but I do think it isn't a total win for the vendors.

Speaking of vendors, this series of purchases did have one very interesting dimension.  Not one of the buys came from Amazon.  These days nearly all of my online buying is from Amazon.  Making a series of purchases all on a single day and not having one of them coming from my standard outlet is downright strange.  I guess it is also a feather in the cap for the marketing departments of the other vendors.  If you are keeping track, each of the purchases I made was the result of an email, no TV advertising, no direct mail circulars, nothing in my feeds (although all of that last group of items I ultimately didn't buy came from feeds).  So I guess if you want me to actually buy something send me a direct email with a deep discount on something I already want to buy.  That is a pretty tough needle to thread I think.

The other thing: Black Friday is supposed to be the kickoff of the holiday gift buying season.  None of these buys were for gifts.  I'm not sure the people making the sales really care if you are buying for yourself or for a gift, but it does seem like it ought to matter - at least to me.