Campus Chronicle
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The Campus Chronicle is a free publication.
a publication of the Pacific Union College Student Association
vol. LXXXIX
THURSDAY 21 NOVEMBER 2013
no. 4
PUC Alumni in Peace Corps
Historic Volleyball Season Ends
Spaghetti and Meatballs
By J. Shim, S. Vatananan NEWS & FEATURES pg. 2
By Austin Ngaruiya NEWS & FEATURES pg. 5
By David O’Hair OP-ED, pg. 6
Black Friday Gobbles up Thanksgiving A break in the holiday tradition. By Michelle Nguyen Instead of spending their Thanksgiving afternoons watching football, more shoppers will be walking off their food comas in the aisles of major retail stores. Best Buy, JC Penney, Kohl’s, Target and Walmart will give individuals a head start on Black Friday by opening on Thanksgiving evening. Meanwhile, Kmart will outdo all of its competitors by welcoming customers on Thanksgiving at 6 a.m., as it has for the last three years. Junior AJ Scarpino, a former Best Buy employee, worked during two Black Fridays, once at 4 a.m. and the other at midnight. He mentioned that having to work at those times ruined his Thanksgiving since he could not sleep. “I fell asleep mid-sell, but the lady still purchased the item,” Scarpino said. “It’s a rough holiday for the sales community.” Black Friday, which is typically the year’s biggest shopping day, has been considered the official start to the holiday buying season. Stores offer special deals, opening in the early hours of the morning, until late in the evening. Thanksgiving and Christmas used to be the only two days a year when stores were closed. However, the stretch of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is six days shorter this year, making retailers anxious about luring customers in early. “This is a huge money making time for companies,” business major Lisa Akrawi said. “Starting a day earlier is going to bring in a lot more money.” According to a survey by Accenture, a management consulting company, 38 percent of shoppers are likely to shop on Thanksgiving Day. Of those shoppers, 41 percent indicated that they will be out shopping between 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving to 5 a.m. on Black Friday. Freshman Joseph Ramos, a current Target employee, believes that some staff members may be willing to work on holidays because of the additional pay. However, he thinks that they should have a say in whether or not they should be on duty.
Early bird gets the worm when it comes to Black Friday. “Thanksgiving is a very special time that is shared with friends and family, so for a corporation to take time like that away from someone is very unfair,” Ramos said. There is an exception to those who are on call during Thanksgiving, such as medical personnel, law enforcement officers and military personnel. As for store employees, it is not necessary to be on call as they are not required to keep the public safe. Time will tell how important Thanksgiving Thursday becomes for retailers, plus how early their schedules will go. So far, stores have not backed away from Thanksgiving Day business hours, even amid employee protests about having to work the holiday. “It’s the day of giving, not getting,” Scarpino said. “Giving thanks and getting things should remain separate.”
Black Friday Gone Wrong Wal-Mart website glitch allowed customers to purchase $600 products for $8.85. By Ari Duran First came Black Friday. Then there was Cyber Monday. Now Wal-Mart shoppers have stumbled upon Unintentional Wednesday. On the morning of Nov. 6, Wal-Mart stores experienced an apparent glitch on the company’s website that allowed customers to purchase a treadmill for $33, a kayak for $11 and even a $579 projector for $8.85. Wal-Mart spokesman, Rai Jariwala, told The New York Times, “We did, in fact, experience a technical error that caused some items on our website to display incorrect pricing.” Jariwala continued, stating that the Wal-Mart site “was not hacked, the company later discovered an internal technical error.” Later that morning, Wal-Mart customers went to Twitter to share the news about Wal-Mart’s substantially low prices for products like a 24-inch, high-definition Viewsonic computer monitor for $8.85.
The actual retail price for the monitor was $578.89. These marked down products sold out in just a few hours. Wal-Mart’s glitch not only dropped prices, but also raised prices on other items as well. A can of Lysol was priced online for $92 and a Spiderman action figure was marked for $330.
Unintentional Wednesday. While Wal-Mart was fixing their technical errors, Walmart.com was temporarily out-of-service. “The issue has been resolved and Walmart.com is open for all,” Jariwala told ABC News later Wednesday afternoon. “Given the wide discrepancy in pricing, we are notifying customers who ordered these items that their orders have been canceled and that they’ll be refunded in full. In addition, we will send these customers a $10 e-gift card that can be used toward future purchases at Wal-Mart stores and Walmart.com.” Wal-Mart refused to say how many sales took place or how much money could have potentially been loss. “Heading into the crucial holiday shopping season, Wal-Mart customer purchased two 27’’ ViewSonic LCD Wal-Mart has doubled the number of items it has on its website from last year to five million,” said Anne Monitor for $8.85 a piece. D’Innocenzio of USA Today. “That’s expected to help Jariwala said that the company was scanning their fuel 30 percent growth in online sales to $10 billion online site to double-check if the technical difficulties for its current fiscal year, which ends in late January. were causing the price discrepancies. Sure enough, That’s still just a sliver of the $486 billion in annual the glitch in the system was the reason behind sales Wal-Mart did last year.”