BALCONES HEIGHTS, Texas — On a typical Friday morning outside of Black Friday Deals in Balcones Heights, you will find tents and a long line. It looks like usual the Black Friday lines in November, but it is spring and this line is long every Friday. Heather Boerm got her spot at 6 p.m. Thursday night.
“Anybody in front of me was here before that,” she said.
Friday is the day new stock arrives. All items are $7. The draw on that particular Friday was drones and hoverboards. The standard Black Friday frenzy starts at 9 a.m. when doors open.
“Be prepared for the craziness because it’s wild,” Boerm said.
Shoppers rush in, grab a cart as quickly as they can, and start running towards large bins filled with merchandise.
The strategy is simple:
“Just grab stuff,” Boerm. “Just start throwing it in.”
Shoppers mostly find unlabeled boxes. That is the thrill for shopper Carla Rosas.
“To me, it’s like Christmas every day,” she said. “You get to open boxes and stuff and you never know what you’re going to find.”
“You get really cool items that sell for over $100 for $7,” Boerm said.
Many shoppers are resellers. One man made $23,000 in three months reselling items he bought. Others, like Seve Lara, is a dad just looking for some super savings.
“Going after the big stuff is not really what I’m here for anymore,” he said. “I’m going after the little household things I need. When I come here, I want to save $50-$60 with the stuff that I pull, which is not too hard.”
His big find was a dustpan that normally retails for $23.
“That’s definitely a good pick right there,” Lara said. “The only thing wrong with it is probably just the box.”
A lot of time, the big, expensive, identifiable items are on top of the pile in the bins, but shoppers said the trick is to dig under the pile because that is where the treasure is hidden.
“Those are the little things that are at the bottom that other people look over but that might be your goal that day to find it,” Lara said.
“You just got to dig,” Rosas said. “Anything and everything they have here.”
Shoppers recommended bringing gloves because items can be dusty or liquid items can leak.
Shoppers head to another area to open the boxes, test that items work, and decide if they want to buy them. Unwanted items go into an empty bin that eventually gets put back out on the floor.
Rosas grabbed a ring light.
“That’s a good find,” a fellow shopper said to her as she showed it off.
New items are regularly brought out through out the day. You know they are coming when a siren sounds. Shoppers flock to the center of the store in anticipation of new bins’ arrival.
Items are most expensive on Friday at $7, Saturday they sell for $5, Sunday $4, Monday $2, Tuesday $1, and Wednesday 50 cents. The store is closed Thursday to restock. Shoppers often go multiple times a week. Having a budget is recommended because even cheap prices add up.
“I started with $100, then it was $200,” Rosas said about what she spends weekly. “Now, I’m up to like, last week $240.”
Every box offers some sort of surprise.
“One day I opened up a box and I had seven things of salt, salt, iodine salt,” Rosas said. “Then one day you’ll open up and get a chandelier worth $700.”
Shoppers spend two to three hours searching through items each trip.
Whether it is a deal or a dud depends on what you are looking for, but shoppers said they get their money’s worth.
Black Friday Deals sells returns as well as overstock and liquidated items from a variety of retailers. All items are final sale and cannot be returned. No membership is needed to shop at the store.