My Thoughts On The Black Friday Sales From "The Big 3"

 

 I wanted to address yesterday's "Black Friday" Sales that Blowout, DA Cardworld, and Steel City Collectibles had going. Overall it was very underwhelming in my opinion as far as card deals go. First of all, Blowout decided to change their format and instead of making an all day event (which I thought was part of the fun) they spread it out for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then had a "Case Extravaganza" on Friday. It just wasn't the same at all plus the majority of the deals were just either totally underwhelming or it' the same old crap they've been discounting for 5+ years that never sells. I hate when people use the excuse "Blowout doesn't have to do this for us" or other excuses that come up to defend how poor Blowout's Black Fridays can be. They aren't doing it "for us"..it's an inventory dump, plain and simple. You think giving us $20 case specials on Elvis retail stuff or Webkins stuff is some kind of sacrifice? It's the same stuff year and year, and it can get really tiring. I mean how many times do you have to see the same 2013 football product on sale for the same amount (sometimes even HIGHER)? I'm not trying to be ungrateful, but it's just the honest truth. If you market something as a Black Friday sale, than it should look like a BLACK FRIDAY SALE! And the "well everyone knows that's how it goes, so why be mad" isn't a valid excuse either. There were deals to be had, no doubt, but the majority of the deals had been available all week and even one notorious one (2018 Heritage High Number Baseball case) actually went UP on Black Friday even though, the whole point of Friday was highlighting a Case Extravaganza! What was the point of pumping Friday up, if the best product of the entire sale was going to be cheaper earlier in the week?! Also, there was literally ZERO advantage of waking up early for the start of the sale, which is really my biggest gripe of it all. The first 2-3 hours of deals most of the deals were either rehashed box deals from earlier in the week that hadn't sold out, or just utter crap retail cases, or stuff like non sport/racing/soccer. There was no reason for me to wake up at 6 A.M  when the best "doorbuster" deal wasn't offered until around 11 or so my time. Were there a couple of decent deal, sure, but nothing that made waking up at 6 worthwhile. A total waste of time. The least they could do, was either have some kind of early bird exclusive sale (even it's just something like hey 1 box of Football Prizm or Basketball Prizm at MSRP) to reward those who decided to wake up earlier than usual for your sale. Or even having one of the better doorbuster sales that early, so those people could take advantage of that sale, instead of competing with everyone else waking up at a normal time. It's just terrible business in my opinion how that happened. I spent more time on Blowout's sale than any and only bought stuff on the Monday wave. I spent a lot of time in the Blowout Cards Black Friday thread and it provided more entertainment than the actual sale. Of course, I didn't understand why people would take offense to others being so upset and disappointed to how underwhelming the sale was. There was a lot of complaints in that thread, but to me all were justified. I'm usually a Blowout guy, but to me, Dave and Adams blew Blowout away in regards to sale prices on products people might be actually interested in. It seems they had a LOT less filler, and they actually had 2018 baseball stuff slightly discounted lower than anyone. And that's my complain about Blowout...even a $5-$10 on some of the most of the recent stuff would've been nice. Yes Blowout had some current stuff marked down, but I felt D&A had the same stuff discounted (and also cheaper) and then a few other different products. The best deal of the day to me was on D&A. A case of 2018 Topps Update Baseball with 12 silver packs for $440. Blowout had the same deal, for $60 more with no silver packs. I dunno, maybe it was just because I literally spent like i dunno 15 minutes on D&A's black friday sale, instead of the hours I spent on Blowout, that my opinion is skewered, but this year, Blowout was the worst Black Friday experiecnce I've had since geting back into the hobby  in relation to the anticpation and hype. At the very least, they should discount the stuff they have every year even more to sell more. Otherwise we'll see the same exact stuff next year at the same price. Steel City Collectibles's sale had a ton of stuff but nothing that caught my eye, but overall my expectations for them are lowest of the 3. Overall there were NO good footabll deals ANYWHERE. A little understandable I guess because of the Mahomes craze, but like really Optic Hobby for example is so marked up as it is (I think its $160-$170 a box) that you couldn't have a doorbuster of it for like $120 (Still WAY above MSRP)? I don't even know if people would buy it at $120, but it'd be nice to see SOMETHING decent for football and this isn't a Blowout specific complaint, nobody had anything worthwhile Football wise. I know this seems mainly like a Blowout Bash Post, but they pump their sale as this grand thing more than anyone else and I just think Blowout "could" do a better job with this sale. Do they "have" to? Nope..of course not, and it'll never be perfect, but I definitely was disappointed and I definitely wasn't alone.