My Black Friday Shopping Tactic - Find Unpopular Sales

I haven't always gone shopping on Black Friday but the past year or two I've gone with my wife.
What has worked for us in the past couple years has been going to sales that most people don't go to. Last year we went to a local discount store and there wasn't much of any line and we easily got the one item we wanted. This year we're planning on going to a used book store. I doubt that the book store will be too busy with most people at the large name retailers.

Overall we've had better success going to smaller less popular sales than we've had going to the big name stores. Generally it seems to get the real good sales at the big name retailers you have to get up before dawn and stand in line for hours and even then you only have a chance of getting their early enough to get one of the limited items. SO you can spend a lot of time, lose some sleep and still not get what you wanted. Your chances of success are better at less popular sales. I doubt there will be much if any line waiting to get into the used book store and we're not facing a limited number of a handful of door-buster sales items.

So this is my tactic : Look for a sale with high value to you and low general interest.

In other words find a sale where there is stuff you want to buy for a good price but its not a very popular store or not somewhere that people are likely to go on Black Friday. The used book store is a good example. We can get books for 50% off so that is a high value for us. However most people aren't even going to think of a used book store on Black Friday given all the giant sales at Best Buy or Walmart.

Of course you'll have to judge for yourself where you'll get the best value. You might do better waiting in line 8 hours at Best Buy to save $250 on a TV than we'll do at the book store. We won't have to wait in line at the used book store but we won't save a ton of money there either. But the money we do save at the used book store is pretty guaranteed and easy money.