Mobile shopper traffic was perhaps the biggest takeaway from the Black Friday weekend, and one retailer really thinks your smartphone deserves a nap — in a tiny, yet luxurious $100 personal bed.
Meanwhile, Canadians lived up to a polite stereotype, greeting Black Friday with clapping and smiling, versus America's brawling and snarling.
This, and more, in this week’s Retail Therapy.
Canadian Black Friday makes Americans look vicious
Black Friday has come and gone, leaving consumers’ wallets — and souls — a little bit emptier than before. As Jason wrote about earlier this week, human decency plummeted (as it tends to) on the blockbuster shopping day, with reports signaling that at least two people were shot and killed in their quest for bargains, and multiple others injured in brawls over parking spaces and doorbuster deals.
How did the chaotic shopping frenzy play out with our neighbors of the north? A Twitter video filmed at a Montreal Best Buy opening for Black Friday depicts a line of outrageously polite Canadians slowly and calmly filing into the store, clapping. Kelly Greig, a Canadian video journalist who shot the video, jabbed at American Black Friday culture with the comment “No elbowing, pushing or injuries. Canada step up your #blackfriday game.”
No elbowing, pushing or injuries. Canada step up your #blackfriday game. Covering the shopping for @Global_Montreal this morning pic.twitter.com/JFaWsWzxRD
— Kelly Greig (@KellyGreig) November 25, 2016
The concept of Black Friday has only taken off in Canada over the last several years, so they’ve still got their innocence ... for now. But we’ll see just how long that lasts.
Meanwhile in America:
A $100 bed where your smartphone can take a nap
It’s been a long, hard week for mobile phones, which were credited with generating a hearty 40% of Black Friday’s record-setting online sales. Smartphones have spent the weekend incessantly browsing the internet and conjuring packages to doorsteps, and now the least you could do is swipe once more to shell out for a luxurious $100 solid wood and velvet-lined bed where your phone can relax and recharge.
Thrive Global, Arianna Huffington’s e-commerce “well-being” website, is marketing the Phone Bed Charging Station as a way to keep your phone cozy and clean with microfiber and satin linens. “By giving our phones their own bed — outside our bedroom — we can say goodnight to our day and get the sleep we need to wake up fully recharged,” the product description states.
For reference, Wal-Mart sells a twin bed for $99.00 and a Memory Dream dog bed for $98.90. But hey, why have children or get a pet when you can splurge on your smartphone baby?
Cheetos luxury apparel sells out
Last week, Cheetos dropped a high-fashion line of luxury apparel, cosmetics and accessories. And the world laughed.
But not so fast. This week over half of the products sold out, including the $20,000 “eye of the cheetah” jewelry, $59.99 “flaming hot pants” and $18.99 “cheeteau perfume” (which is apparently “crafted from hand-extracted cheese oils taken from only the rarest Cheetos and carefully mixed by hitting the blender’s ON button”).
Best of all, the snack brand is selling “colour de Cheetos bronzer,” which is deliciously described as "The color of cheese, the glow of the sun." The product is still in stock ... for now.
A teen ‘accidentally’ spent over $700 at Sephora
A video blog of 15-year-old self-proclaimed makeup fan Alex Dello went viral on Twitter this week after she confessed to viewers how she accidentally charged $733 worth of Sephora cosmetics to her mother’s credit card. In the video, the teen shows an embarrassing text in which she asked her mom to cancel the order, and vents about phone calls with customer service.
Black Friday discounts were good, but apparently not that good. Dello might be grounded for this one.
I just accidentally charged my mother's card $733 @Sephora pic.twitter.com/rzg9UntKRW
— alex dello. (@dellojello) November 22, 2016
