Black Friday Shopping!

I went….in my robe and slippers sipping my Hot Coffee. How? Check it out on my Chat with Sandy Blog.

Collective Bias, Whrrl and 20 Bloggers…Bring you Black Friday Deals.

Collective Bias is an interactive marketing company that fits the brands with the bloggers (or those of us who actually do the shopping). They accomplish this by building relationships with us. Pretty cool. Collective Bias has partnered with Whrrl. Whrrl is the application that I have been using to make these great slide shows. You can do them directly from your iphone or blackberry phones. They are working together to help you find great deals on Black Friday.

They have chosen twenty bloggers (I’m one of them!!) led by the Consumer Queen, Melissa Garcia and Courtney Velasquez of Giftfully Simple. What we are doing is searching for the best deals for you. We are putting them on the www.mybfdeals.com site and also whrrling them. On this Black Friday we are going to be out in the masses whrrling the craziness just for you!

We are wanting visitors to check the website frequently up through Black Friday and then throughout the day on Black Friday which is November 27th, 2009. You will have the best chance to find the best deals….and then follow right along with us. Hopefully you are out there yourself…and you can whrrl your own story by going to www.whrrl.com and signing up. Visitors can vote for the deals they like the best, and the participating blogger with the most votes on a deal will receive Google Analytics training or tech/design assistance for his or her blog. (so vote for my whrrl story because I can REALLY use the training! LOL

Quote from John Andrews who is the Managing Partner of Collective Bias, “We wanted to integrate a strong social media campaign to show the power that the average person or blogger has to reach so many others. By working with bloggers, Whrrl and social media sites, we can effectively spread this idea like wildfire.”

You can also find My Black Friday Deals on channels like Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

About Collective Bias
The first company of its kind, Collective Bias offers an alternative to the traditional agency model. Formed at the nexus of and Social Media and Shopper Marketing, we address the need for a comprehensive approach to facilitate ongoing conversations amongst brands, retailers and consumers. Our philosophy is to build true relationships between brands and consumers that make those consumers “part of something” and engender a sense of ownership that manifests itself in advocacy.

About Whrrl
Whrrl v2.0 lets us take pictures as they happen and share them with a wide based group of people, via our phones or computers. Whrrl is a product of Pelago, a Seattle-based company led by an executive team from companies including Amazon, RealNetworks and Yahoo. Pelago is backed by pioneering Internet and mobile investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Bezos Expeditions, T-Venture, Trilogy Equity Partners and Reliance Technology Ventures.

Disclosure: Collective Bias has reimbursed me for my travel time to do my Black Friday shopping. This post was based upon the information that went out in a Press Release that I have permission to use.

Organize for Black Friday Shopping

Check out my Whrrl Story for some great deals. Also go to My Black Friday Deals and check out what others are finding for you.

Organize and Prepare for Black Friday Shopping.

I will be updating this link frequently over the next couple of weeks, up to, during and just after Black Friday.
I will be taking my camera and whrrling from the depths of…yes…you guessed it Black Friday shopping!
There will actually be 20 of us from Collective Bias who will be doing the “crazy”.
You can follow all of us on My BFDeals.com and also on twitter with hashtag #bfdeals
So follow along for some great ideas on how you can be ready for the busiest shopping day of the year!

click on the picture to see the whole #whrrl Story.

Christmas lists

Make a Christmas List Before You shop

Christmas list….we all need to make them before we get out into that crazy, sale driven, deal making shopping world!
I guess I would think that everyone would make a list, and I would bet that most of us do. But I do know people who just wing it. They go out to do their shopping and have an idea of what they are going to get the 23 people they have to buy for.
It’s just too hard to keep it straight. To remember if you got Johnnie black socks and Rubin an X-box 360 and you need to have about the same amount to give each one.
It’s simple…just write down everyone you need to shop for. If you have ideas or know what you plan to get them…write it down under their name. When you find it..mark it off. If you find something different or new…write it in. Very simple and will help you tremendously.
This is Doe with her Christmas list for the dollar store. She had her pencil with her to mark off who she bought for. Cute huh?

Black Friday Shopping …Organized

Organizing for Black Friday Shopping

Are you a Black Friday shopper? Do you set your alarm for 3am and have the drive in the dark and sometimes snow. Standing out in the line that you can’t believe is already THAT long? If you have never experienced the craziness…you are actually missing some fun. I don’t shop every year on Black Friday am, only if there are things that it will benefit me and I am in the right frame of reference to do so.
But I love to do it and usually make it about 75% of the time.
But I think once you get yourself on the road (the getting up is no fun), then you feel like you are off to tackle a battle and its really fun.
I usually go to Walmart because I would rather wait inside..thank you very much. They just have all the “door busters” covered up and you are guessing at which big covered thing in the middle of the aisles is what you want. Then at the given time of the sale there is supposed to be an employee by each one…they tear them off and everyone starts diving for them. I have never been in a situation where people are literally fighting or pushing or calling names. I know it happens, but usually everyone is friendly and tend to help each other out. You are there on the same mission.
But it is easy to get caught up in the frenzy and buy too much. You may go with one thing in mind, but if you don’t have your shopping trip planned you may walk away with oodles of things you really didn’t budget for or you may walk away without any of the deals you went for.

Before you go

1) Make your list on Thanksgiving day with the sales ads in hand. If you know the
layout of the store, mark down a map of where you plan to go.
2) Plan which stores you are going to go to and at what time (plan early for
your first store). Some stores match prices so you can take your K-mart ad into
Walmart with the exact same item and if there is a given price (you can’t use a
percentage off, they won’t honor that)during the hours of the sales, they will
match that. (Check to make sure your store matches prices)
3) Get to your store early (everyone else will too) Make sure you have your list
with you AND the store ads. (keep them in a folder)
4) Go for your most important item first. Then try your best to stick to your plan.
5) Try to resist grabbing the last ticket for that 52″ big screen that you don’t
need or want just because you are in the right place at the right time.
6) Go light hearted and plan to have fun. Having a positive attitude can make
your experience an adventure instead of a disaster!