Dailey Bailey: Black Friday Round-Up: Sales Are Down, Fights Are Up

Another Black Friday is behind us, and hey . . . no one died!  That’s what progress looks like, America.

But that doesn’t mean everything went smoothly.  Here’s my four point round-up of Black Friday 2015 . . .

 

1.  If you feel like you didn’t hear so much this year about people camping out for deals . . . it’s because they didn’t.  Sales at stores were down 10.3% this year, to $10.4 billion.

But online sales were way up.  They jumped 14.3% from last year, to $4.45 billion.

Online shopping is the biggest reason the Black Friday store frenzies have calmed down a little . . . especially since most of the best deals are offered there too.

The other main reasons are that now a lot of stores open on Thursday . . . and it’s basically “Black November” now, with good sales throughout the entire month.

 

 

2.  Of course, plenty of people still went shopping in person.  And there were PLENTY of fights to show for it.  Search “Black Friday 2015” on YouTube and there are a bunch of compilations of people brawling all over the country.

One video that’s getting attention shows a woman in Michigan snatching a veggie steamer from a kid, then fighting his mom . . . but it’s almost too perfect, so people think it might be staged.

 

 

 

 

3.  Some people in Chicago staged a protest on Black Friday over a teenager named Laquan McDonald, who was shot and killed by the police.

They blocked dozens of stores on Michigan Avenue, which is the biggest shopping district in Chicago.  Most of the stores wouldn’t comment on whether it affected their sales.

 

4.  The game Cards Against Humanity is known for being irreverent on Black Friday.  One year they raised their prices, and another year they sold boxes of crap . . . literally.

This year their Black Friday deal was . . . you could pay them $5 for nothing.  And believe it or not, more than 11,000 people actually did it.

The staff split up the $71,145 of pure profit and posted what they spent it on, including things like kitty litter . . . video games . . . an authentic “Lord of the Rings” long bow . . . expensive booze . . . divorce lawyer payments . . . and donations to charity.

 

 

(Yahoo / MarketWatch / Chicago Tribune / Cards Against Humanity)