Stores Have Profitable Black Friday But Not All Shoppers Leave Happy

If Black Friday has become an after-Thanksgiving tradition in the retail world, complaints about the Black Friday shopping experience appear to be something of a new tradition as well.

There were isolated reports of pushing andshoving at stores around the country, but no major incidents. And no one was killed, as was the case two years ago when a Wal-Mart employee was trampled by an early-morning crowd.

This year, many of the complaints received at ConsumerAffairs.com over the weekend were from disappointed Wal-Mart customers who were hoping to purchase one of the chain's advertised Black Friday specials.

$198 laptop

Bernadetti, of Los Banos, Calif., said she arrived at her local Wal-Mart at 6:00 pm on Thursday and was eighth in line when the doors opened at midnight. She had her sights set on a $198 laptop.

"My husband and I were number one in the $198 Laptop group," Bernadetti told ConsumerAffairs.com. "We asked for three laptops. At that time my husband asked how many laptops were available for sale and he was told 97."

After filing out the paperwork for the purchase, Bernadetti was told to return at 6:00 am to pick up the merchandise.

"When we got to the area and showed our wristband we were told that they were all gone,†she said.

Store personnel, she said, told them they had overestimated how many computers were available by two thirds.

Amy of Bainbridge, N.Y., had a similar, recounted a similar experience at Radio Shack.

"I was impressed with the Acer netbook sale price for Black Friday," Amy told ConsumerAffairs.com. "I was at the Norwich store as soon as they opened at 5:30am Friday morning to purchase this item."

Sold out?

But Amy said she didn't see any of the Acer Netbooks in the store and when she asked, she said she was told the store had already sold out.

"The sale started today and I was there when the doors opened," she said. "How could they already be sold out?"

Consumers who get up early and think they are playing by the rules are angry when they perceive the retailers aren't following their own rules.

"The sign on the pallet said limit one per customer," Mike, of Milwaukee, Wis., told ConsumerAffairs.com in a complaint about Target. "The pallet was empty. Numerous people in the checkout lanes had two or three of the items in their cart. I informed an employee and their response was 'it's not my problem'. Apparently the store cannot enforce their own rules."

'Mac of the masses'

Obviously, plenty of shoppers were more successful in their Black Friday purchases. In a note today, Piper Jaffrey analyst Gene Munster predicted Apple racked up huge sales of its iPad Friday, calling the tablet introduced earlier this year "the Mac of the masses.â€

Nintendo said it had a very good week last week. During the seven day period that included Black Friday, the electronics company said it sold 900,000 DS systems and 600,000 Wii consoles.

ShopperTrak, a retail sales analyst, reports shoppers spent $10.69 billion on Black Friday, a small increase over the year before. One reason, the company said, is many retailers rolled out their holiday specials much earlier in the month.

"Retailers were very conscious of driving traffic early in November and in doing so some might have thinned Black Friday spending a bit," said ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin.  "The reality is we have a deal driven consumer in 2010 and that consumer responded to some of the earliest deep discounts we've even seen for the holidays.  Additionally, a percentage of retailers concentrated on pushing folks to their Websites with various online-only sales."