Thanks to Amazon, I survived Black Friday

I’ve never ventured out on Black Friday. In fact, as I get older, the more I despise Xmas. Or at least America’s version of it.

But I do have kids, and it’s hard to deny a child a toy that they really want. Our 4 year old wanted a drum set for xmas. We did a bit of ebaying but didn’t quite find anything. Then the Black Friday sales started leaking earlier in the month. Toys-R-Us–a store I loathe going to–had an $80 dollar drum kit that was going to be on sale for $40. So, I thought maybe I’d venture out for once on Black Friday to snag that.

Then I did a bit of googling and came upon ‘Black Friday shopping tips’. Get up at 3am. Stand in line to get into the store for at least an hour. Stand in line to check out for at least 2 hours. Expect deals to be sold out immediately.

Whoa. Americans really do that on Black Friday? Yeesh.

Well, luck was on our side. After enjoying the other American pastime…gorging on dead turkey…I thought I’d jump on Amazon to see if by some small chance that the sale price was going to be posted online. Not only was it going to be on-sale on Amazon, it was on sale a day early. Whew!

I snagged the drum set, and a gift for the wife, and checked out. Then it occurred to me to grab another quick gift, so I did just that. Damn. Now I’m paying double shipping. Oh! I can combine my orders at Amazon. Nice! Oops. Page error. Try again. Error. One more time. Error. Damn.

In defeat, I send an email to Amazon hoping for some remedy.

Well, less than 24 hours later (and this was over Thanksgiving), Amazon replied to my email with a long explanation of why I was unable to combine my order. I didn’t quite understand it (might have had to do with it actually being a Toys-R-Us product) but that didn’t matter, because they had decided to refund my entire shipping cost to make up for the ‘misunderstanding’ on my part.

Wow.

Customer service like that is so rare that it has to be shared when it happens. ;o)

So, thank you Toys-R-Us for having the foresight to put your online items for sale and saving me from Black Friday, and thank you Amazon for doing a small thing to secure a very loyal customer from now on.