Glam Slam: Holiday Sales — Bargain Bonanza Or Bust?

Posted in 29 November 2011
by Admin.



November 29, 2011

How did you do with the holiday sales? I have to admit, I’m not one of those people who’s gonna wait in line at midnight to save 50 bucks on a TV.

I am apparently in the minority though since Black Friday was the biggest shopping day on record with $52 billion in sales.

I did, however, hit a few stores during reasonable daylight hours! I was pleasantly surprised at The Grove shopping complex in Los Angeles. I thought it would be insane finding parking and fighting crowds, but it was easy and not annoyingly crowded. Actually, it was pretty festive there, everyone seemed to be in the holiday spirit—none of the fighting you saw on the news!

J. Crew had a good sale and so did The Gap. I got a couple of gifts, but mostly clothes for my husband and daughter. I also hit a couple of swanky stores in Beverly Hills and the salesgirl at one upscale department store told me she was embarrassed because nothing was on sale and customers were extremely disappointed.

I kinda felt the same way. “Anticipointment” is a word we use in television and the same could be said for the sales. More hype and hoopla than anything.

The salesgirl did tell me about the big sale on net-a-porter.com so I went there and found an Alexander McQueen scarf that I had just seen in a Beverly Hills boutique at full price, which was half off on the site! I’m loving Cyber Monday! (Which, BTW, brought in an estimated $1.2 billion.)

I did a quick informal poll around the office to see how other’s fared and if they hit the sales. “I didn’t… I can’t handle packed malls,” one producer told me and a few others stayed away too.

A couple of people did pretty well though. One of our producers, Sharon, hit the Westfield Topanga shopping town. “For the most part, it was too crowded for me to want to try anything on…but at Express, I bought a shirt and my sister bought a pair of pants—combined together—shirt wound up being free thanks to sale and coupons! Disney Store sales were good and I bought a 10 dollar nightgown for my niece. My sister did very well at Target—buying some kids’ games for a toy drive at school for $3.99.”

Coworker Ashley also did well at Target, finding a pair of Missoni flats for 7 bucks! Score!

Anthony in our photo department says “since I camped out for the H&M Versace line the Saturday before, I felt like I already did Black Friday LOLOL! But, I did head to Macy’s on Black Friday to get some Christmas Lenox China and table linens that were on special in the morning. Sixty percent off, and I cut out coupons from the paper that gave you additional savings before 1pm. “

“I did a little ‘me’ shopping,” Terri in our NY office says. “I ran into The Gap on my corner at 8:30am—to grab a few pairs of 1969 jeans (my fave) at $19.”

I also did some “me” shopping on Small Business Saturday, when my husband, daughter and I hit adorable Larchmont Boulevard in Los Angeles. All of the stores were having sales and while they aren’t able to slash prices like the big guys, they make up for it with awesome personal customer service, free gift wrapping and holiday snacks. We may have spent a little more money than at a chain, but I love that we were helping keep the mom and pop stores in business and preserving this little gem of a street and that means more than a fleeting holiday sale.

 
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Ryan Patterson is a Supervising Producer for Access Hollywood

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