Black Friday is known for driving shoppers into a frenzy, but for two California diehards, Black Friday officially started on November 7. That's the day bargain hunters Vickey Torres and Juanita Salas set up camp outside Best Buy's Beaumont, CA, store in the hopes of securing the retailer's Black Friday doorbuster deals. (Heads up, ladies, Best Buy will open at 5pm on Thanksgiving Day.)
For those not keeping count, that means these women lined up a whole 22 days before Black Friday. That beats last year's earliest shoppers, who coincidentally also flocked to Best Buy, by eight days. The women, who take turns going home for showers and breaks, say they've been doing this for years and are hoping to score a good deal on a television.
To be fair, Best Buy does have some killer deals in its Black Friday ad — we're particularly smitten with its $200 50" Panasonic TV and $900 55" Samsung 4K HDTV — but these women lined up before Best Buy's ad even leaked. Additionally, they're probably unaware of the dozens of other equally great HDTV deals, some of which will be available online before Black Friday.
In an interview with CBS Las Vegas, Torres admits some people may think she's crazy, but says such criticisms don't bother her. Online commenters, however, can be harsher as Libi Uremovic wonders how two humans could have "nothing to do with their lives for 22 days that's more important that saving $20 on a television."
Readers, what advice would you give to Torres and Salas? Are Best Buy's Black Friday deals that good? Are there any deals that would encourage you to set up camp outside a store this week?
I clicked on her name on her comment and then on the link to her personal Web site that's on her Disqus profile and I found her rather... interesting.
This is done all the time for sporting events when tickets for special games go on sale; i.e., superbowl, world series, etc.
The shame of it is they are not paid very well.