[SamAdams76]

The joke is on the shoppers with regard to "Black Friday" hoopla.

Retailers arrange ahead of time for suppliers to "mark up" certain items so it appears they are passing on huge bargains to their customers. In many cases, it is a crafty way for manufacturers to get rid of unsold product that they were going to write off anyway - usually cheap "no-name" brands of CD players, VCRs, TVs, etc.

So those piles of $29 DVD players at Wal-Mart were likely sitting in warehouses gathering dust, destined for landfills. Just cheap crap that will probably break within a year or two.

[COBOL2Java]

[VanDeKoik]

A lot of this junk ends up at garage sales within 6 months.

I’ve bought many things that still had wrapping paper bits still attached to the box!

[grania]

I don't get it with this kind of buying being fun or economical. I've finished my Christmas shopping. Every year, I buy a little less than I would on sale, but get merchandise that I know hasn't been manhandled or returned. I do that by purchasing before the Thanksgiving events. The real good stuff in the new stock for Christmas usually doesn't decrease that much in price anyway, but might sell out. If anything purchased online isn't correct, returns and replacements can easily and rationally be done.

Even early, there are often coupons and deals on shipping.