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Shop 'til you drop
Nov. 28th, 2014 08:38 amWhich I don’t do.
The only time I dealt with Black Friday was when I was in retail and it was all hands on deck at where ever I was working. Fortunately by the time the big box stores were doing door busters, I have moved onto bookstores and comic book stores which don’t. But between now and Christmas, the stores are pretty crazy.
My parents had a Black Friday ritual which they did until things got too insane. They would shop, have lunch, and finish up most of their Christmas shopping by that afternoon. Now they use the internet for most of their shopping.
And I wonder how much the Internet has changed the frenzy of the physical stores.
So far I haven’t seen any incidents of maiming or death on the news so I guess that’s a good thing.
And I have seen people get mean/physical over the last of something. I watched once as a woman put down a stack of books to look at another book and another woman came and grabbed a popular book out of her stack and rabbited. The manager had to get involved and we solved it by giving the first woman a copy that I had found during the sweep of the store on Wednesday and hadn’t been re-shelved yet.
Worse than Black Friday was the day that Oprah announced her book club book. That got really vicious. Especially since we tended to have about five copies of whatever book she announced if that and it was first come first served nothing put on hold for those.
Comic book stores do well on Black Friday but we don’t get the insanity of lots of people however we do get people that it is the first time that they have ever stepped foot into a comic book store and they haven’t a clue what they are looking for. They have a list and a rough idea what they want to spend. I spent most of my day just helping people find things or recommending things if we didn’t have it or they weren’t sure what the person already had. I honed my customer service skills on that day a lot.
I ask you the consumer to consider presents from artisans and the like. I have a friend who makes these really cool puppet scarfs called Glarfs. Dave also makes really nice puppets. Another puppet artisan I can recommend is Stephanie Gordon.
For cool art work with a lovely twist might I suggest giving Janet Lee a look. I have loved her style for years and am very happy that she is able to do this full time.
Next year I will have puppets for sale unless someone wants to buy something I have already made. Hey I still have Sherlock and Watson.
I am grateful for rational customers who understand that I wasn’t hiding the last copy of something or that we had a box in the back we hadn’t opened yet.
The only time I dealt with Black Friday was when I was in retail and it was all hands on deck at where ever I was working. Fortunately by the time the big box stores were doing door busters, I have moved onto bookstores and comic book stores which don’t. But between now and Christmas, the stores are pretty crazy.
My parents had a Black Friday ritual which they did until things got too insane. They would shop, have lunch, and finish up most of their Christmas shopping by that afternoon. Now they use the internet for most of their shopping.
And I wonder how much the Internet has changed the frenzy of the physical stores.
So far I haven’t seen any incidents of maiming or death on the news so I guess that’s a good thing.
And I have seen people get mean/physical over the last of something. I watched once as a woman put down a stack of books to look at another book and another woman came and grabbed a popular book out of her stack and rabbited. The manager had to get involved and we solved it by giving the first woman a copy that I had found during the sweep of the store on Wednesday and hadn’t been re-shelved yet.
Worse than Black Friday was the day that Oprah announced her book club book. That got really vicious. Especially since we tended to have about five copies of whatever book she announced if that and it was first come first served nothing put on hold for those.
Comic book stores do well on Black Friday but we don’t get the insanity of lots of people however we do get people that it is the first time that they have ever stepped foot into a comic book store and they haven’t a clue what they are looking for. They have a list and a rough idea what they want to spend. I spent most of my day just helping people find things or recommending things if we didn’t have it or they weren’t sure what the person already had. I honed my customer service skills on that day a lot.
I ask you the consumer to consider presents from artisans and the like. I have a friend who makes these really cool puppet scarfs called Glarfs. Dave also makes really nice puppets. Another puppet artisan I can recommend is Stephanie Gordon.
For cool art work with a lovely twist might I suggest giving Janet Lee a look. I have loved her style for years and am very happy that she is able to do this full time.
Next year I will have puppets for sale unless someone wants to buy something I have already made. Hey I still have Sherlock and Watson.
I am grateful for rational customers who understand that I wasn’t hiding the last copy of something or that we had a box in the back we hadn’t opened yet.
