7 Reasons to avoid the high street this Black Friday

It’s that time of year again, the day after Thanksgiving in America and time for certain shoppers worldwide to go into a frenzy, literally in some cases. We thought in this week’s blog we would take a look at Black Friday and how it has grown to the extreme shopping event we know today.

Traditionally the first shopping day after Thanksgiving in America; “Black Friday” is so named because retailers would be swamped by shoppers on this particular day, making huge sales and be “in the black”. We start off with a compilation of some typical Black Friday madness showing the huge numbers of bargain hunters allowing the stores to make these huge profits.

Doorbusters are the special bargains only available to the first few shoppers through the door and are limited stock which prompts the crazy stampedes of shoppers. This even sometimes results in people being trampled underfoot or in some cases subdued by police officers. Pretty extreme behaviour over a TV.

This video, highly reminiscent of scenes from the film “Dawn of the Dead” shows hundreds of “doorbusters” flooding into a California branch of Urban Outfitters in 2011 as if seeking brains for sustenance. The only real explanation is a life threatening shortage of skinny jeans and vintage dresses.

Some shoppers are so intent on getting a discounted vacuum cleaner or camera that they will defend their purchase, sometimes with physical force. Unfortunately there are many fights and injuries every year when shoppers squabble over the last Xbox and sometimes resort to physical violence. Here’s a report from CNN with a psychologist who offers some possible explanations for the madness.

Of course not everyone takes Black Friday so seriously, here we see a brave man pranking a cue of people, who have waited overnight outside a store, by trying to push in. Needless to say the campers/shoppers are not too amused.

As with Halloween, Black Friday has been adopted in the UK and has grown in popularity and number of participants year on year. Here’s a video showing some classy behaviour at an Asda store in Wembley where there is total chaos at the offer of cheap televisions, you’d think they’d just been invented or something.

If you are braving the crowds this weekend in search of bargains take care, look after each other and first check out these handy tips from surviving shoppers interviewed by a local US news station:

Of course we would advise you to avoid such crowds and chaos and check out our Black Friday sale on-line from the comfort of your own home. Stay warm and grab yourself a deal at spycameracctv.com where we have 20% off everything this Black Friday weekend.