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This Friday kicks off the official start of the 2009 holiday shopping season. To many American consumers, “Black Friday” is a day to do some MAJOR shopping! The day after Thanksgiving was historically referred to as “black” because it was usually the point during the year at which stores started making major profits, as opposed to operating “in the red,” or at a loss. In these troubled economic times, it’s impossible that even the most robust levels of receipts on the 29th will constitute enough of a windfall to drag the retail sector out of its painful slump, but stores are still banking on the traffic from this day to bring in customers that have stayed away, and to start this year’s holiday shopping blitz on the right foot. If credit cards had feelings, Black Friday would be a moribund day indeed, owing to the abuse that America’s plastic receives on this unofficial holiday.

The Black Friday sales will officially be revealed in the voluminous sales inserts to daily newspapers on Thursday. In reality, however, scans of these circulars have been available on the World Wide Web for weeks. Some stores aim for a higher level of secrecy than others: I’ve seen commercials on TV for Black Friday specials for several days now, and some store employees are handing out fliers highlighting the deals. Technically, it’s already too late for you to be first in line for the best promos. The marvels of contemporary technology have given the most ambitious shoppers a major jump on their rivals. At my local Best Buy, the most intrepid gentleman I’ve ever heard of has already been hanging out in a tent by the front door to safeguard his coveted first place in line since last Friday! For the most part, however, the really big lines will start forming late Thursday evening, after everyone has scarfed their last slices of turkey and pumpkin pie and caught the end of the 4 p.m. football game. If you are planning on venturing into the Black Friday fray for the first time, be prepared for lines and crowds… lots of them. Observe good Black Friday etiquette (no place-holding, line jumping, or anything else disrespectful), and keep your wits and wallet about you at all times. Last year, a Wal-Mart store employee was trampled to death by the agitated throngs of people storming the store for Black Friday treasure. The incident caused the corporation to pay special attention this year to the queuing and ticket-distribution process that stores are instructed to follow, so as to maximize safe crowd control.

The best Black Friday sales are known as “doorbusters,” for reasons that should be obvious. I worked for Circuit City, the now-defunct electronics retailer, during college and will never forget my first Black Friday. I was lucky enough – and that’s some serious sarcasm – to be stationed at the first register, the one closest to the huge sliding glass doors. Consequently, I had a front-row seat for the 5 a.m. pandemonium when the doors were unlocked and the teeming masses of bargain-hungry shoppers began to push and shove their way through the foyer like a swarm of ravenous land piranhas. One lady was pushed up against a wall, pinned by the crowds. Another two shoppers broke out in fisticuffs, coming to blows over the last shopping cart. If you are planning on

Profanity filled the air, and the stacked pallets of discount television sets and five dollars DVDs were depleted within moments. Within five minutes of opening, every “big ticket” item – the laptops, the LCD TVs, the GPS sets – was gone, swept away in a frenzied tide of sale mania. The reality is that stores are usually selling doorbuster items at a loss. Their insider name, “loss leaders,” refers to the fact that they are designed to bring traffic into the store, and hopefully in the path of higher-markup items on which the store actually makes money. Sales associates at the store where I worked were exhaustively counseled on suggestive selling of accessory items appropriate to customers’ purchases for this reason. Batteries, laptop carrying cases, power surge protectors, blank media, and the almighty extended warranty plans are all high-markup items, and managers would designate one seasonal drone to shlep a basket filled with these items up and down the length of the lines, offering them to customers before they made it to the checkout stand.

I recommend that you bring back-up cash as a purchase method for your Black Friday shopping. Nationwide credit card networks will be processing massive amounts of card transactions on Friday, and there’s always a chance that the network will go down for a period of time. How frustrating would it be to wait all that time in line, only to have the cashier tell you that they cannot process your card? Another thing to keep in mind is your daily spending limit. You may either have your card declined or find yourself on the receiving end of a phone call from your card issuer if your card is determined to be experiencing activity that is uncharacteristic of the account. Giving verbal notification to your card issuer should be all that’s necessary to get you back on track… but it’s another hassle in the meantime that can really slow you down. The customers behind you will NOT be pleased if you have to make a customer service call after a twenty minute wait in line, and will probably demand you hit the back of the queue. Like I said, bring some cash.

Also don’t discount Cyber Monday. This term has been given in recent years to the Monday after Thanksgiving, which has become the date for online retailers to deliver doorbusting bargains on items as a response to the brick-and-mortar retailers’ Black Friday. It might require that you stumble to your computer at quite an early time in the morning, but you can do so in your pajamas and avoid the mobs! It’s believed that retailers will offer deals at least as good on Monday as they will be on Friday, so there’s a good incentive for you to stay away from the crowds. Of course, not everyone is willing to take that chance!

Other than that, my two biggest pieces of advice for would-be Black Friday bargain hunters are thus: pack a good attitude, and don’t get swept away by the deals. You are going to have a miserable experience and sully the shopping of everyone around you if you come acting entitled, cranky, aggressive, deceitful, or greedy. It’s a tough day for everyone. Don’t contribute to the problem. Give your harried cashier a smile and wish them a nice morning, and resist the urge to take a swing at the jerk who will inevitably sneak in the Garden Center door at Wal-Mart and get a prime crack at the Zhu Zhu Pet display that you’ve been focused on for six hours outside lined up in the cold. (Bring that last offender to a store employee’s attention, and let the blue vests deal with it!) Also, keep in mind the old adage that you need not purchase something just because it is on sale! The best-priced CD, DVD, or electronic appliance is no deal if it costs you money that you had no plans on spending in the first place. I do believe that credit cards are the safest form of tender with which to shop during the holidays due to their unparalleled protection against fraud and defective purchases… but it really does fall back on the consumer to use good self-control and to not run up an unreasonable amount of debt on their plastic during the holidays. Happy shopping!