by Tricia Schneider

Created on: October 28, 2008

Being a former sales clerk, I should be among the first to dispute the benefits of shopping during the infamous Black Friday. With only the mention of that particular day, images of crowded malls, unending lines, crying children, and sales hungry women enter the mind. Despite the truth of some of those images, I would highly recommend taking that fateful trip to the mall. Timing, however, is the key to success.

The common practice of most stores is to open several hours earlier than normal opening time in an effort to promote those Early Bird' specials. These are the deals worth setting the alarm. Most of these specials are limited time only, being from open to perhaps eight or nine o'clock, after which the prices return to the original non-sale price. This is usually how the stores make their money. They snare the shoppers in with talk of huge savings. However, these savings are only for morning hours and do not benefit those who sleep in after being drugged with an overdose of turkey and stuffing from the day prior.

Most people are unaware of the scarcity of early bird shoppers. Only those dedicated few are haunting the malls and stores when most others are still tucked away snug in their beds. Shopping during this time is uncommonly stress free since there are rarely many lines and customer service is easy to come by since for this particular day staff is added in abundance to accommodate the influx of shoppers that normally appear during the later morning hours. I should add here that this is true of the stores and malls in rural areas such as where I live. Considering the numbers of shoppers that might converge on the malls in the city areas, I could not say the same would be true.

For shopping practicality, it is advisable for moms to leave the kids sleep in with weary dads since they are the most likely recipients of the Christmas shopping frenzy. And it would lessen the strain of both shoppers and retail workers alike not to subdue everyone to the screaming infant, toddler, or school age child who would much rather be nestled in their beds than dragged from store to store in an effort to take advantage of a shopping cart full of mega-deals.

It is best to take advantage of these spectacular savings for the few hours they are available since most shoppers won't see such sales until after the Christmas sales rush which is becoming just as momentous.

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