Saturday, November 26, 2011

Did you shop Target on Black Friday?


Did you venture into Target the day after (or should I say, mere hours after) your Thanksgiving feast? I, for one, did not. Black Friday is the one day of the year that I AVOID going to Target at all costs. But plenty of other people went, as Reuters is reporting that the earlier opening was a success, and that the midnight-start to Black Friday will become the norm.

Target is continuing the "earlier is better" trend by planning to post their "CyberMonday" deals several hours earlier, on Sunday night. But buyer beware when using Target's new web site. The site is still problematic, according to ConsumerAffairs. They report a Black Friday incident where Kim (from Wilmington, Mass) placed an order from Target.com in part, she says, because the site said there would be no charge for shipping on orders over $50.

"My order was a $400 order, and only after I placed the order, did it jump to over $600," Kim told ConsumerAffairs.com. "I was charged for shipping, which cost more than the most expensive item in my cart." Luckily, Kim realized the error in time, and added "I was able to cancel the order within my 30 minutes."

3 comments:

Amandah said...

Hi! I'm loyal fan of your blog, so I wanted to pass this on, in case you haven't heard about it yet: I'm wondering if you know about the return policy with Target regarding Paypal and online orders? I had a sort of brutal awakening this morning when I tried to return a few Missoni items that I (finally) received. I had ordered two sizes of each item and went to return the size that didn't fit and found out to my frustration that I was not entitled to a full refund, only a Target gift card! Quite the shock. And, the customer service rep on the phone chastised me and made me feel foolish because I hadn't read all their fine print prior to checking out (during all that Missoni Madness, yeah, right -- I was lucky I wasn't kicked off their site!!). So, I'm out some major dough for my efforts and the items I kept from the order will forever remind me of how Target took advantage of my naivete. Anyway, am in the process of notifying my friends about this, in case any of them are still waiting on Missoni orders and can't afford to eat the cost of the whole order. Makes me feel sort sad and tricked. I mean, yeah, I could use it at some point, but my cash flow isn't that liquid and I was counting on getting that refund in order to shop for Christmas -- and there's nothing left on my list that I can get at Target at this point, so I'm just screwed.

Target Addict said...

Amandah: no, I hadn't heard about this, and I'm so sorry! I don't use Paypal when shopping at Target, so I didn't realize they had a special policy in "fine print" around returns paid for via Paypal. That's certainly frustrating!

Anonymous said...

I shopped Target on Black Friday. I didn't camp out or wait in line, but arrived around 1:30 AM. I scored a bunch of Blu-Rays/DVDs that my family wanted. The line was actually efficient and fast, and the employees/shoppers were pretty calm (surprisingly).

I think I might head back there next year. On the other hand the line at Best Buy was insane...