I just wanted to write a quick post before the holidays. In the next few weeks, I hope to write a few OR and non-OR posts.
This year, I am grateful for all of the excellent use of OR (naturally) and for my regular readers.
Do you use OR during Thanksgiving? With all the travel, and oven scheduling, I imagine that many of us start to use advanced analytical techniques to manage the details during the long holiday weekend. I know I will. Since I have written about this before, I will refer you to the related posts.
Related posts:
- Oven scheduling
- OR of food banks
- My most widely read publication – my recipe for pumpkin chocolate-chip muffins. I made a massive batch last week.
Don’t forget to post about your OR-related Thanksgiving plans. I am particularly interested in hearing about how you would justify participating in or avoiding the Black Friday sales (using OR, of course). I have never shopped the Black Friday sales, but might give it a shot if you can convince me.
Punk Rock Operations Research 
November 25th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
>> participating in or avoiding the Black Friday sales (using OR, of course)
OR says do both.
DO avoid going to brick-and-mortar stores on BF due to extreme congestion, demand >> supply => stampede. Stores just have very few sales drivers at low price, aka “loss leaders” in retail parlance to induce traffic, i.e. a nonlinear sales response. Overall, this is mainly for the media cameras and good publicity for the stores.
Do participate in BF sales, online. retailers have some much excess junk from last year its more efficient for them to sell it online and ease their workload in B&M stores.
Do seek second-order effects where junk not marked-down enough is available on monday for even less $$.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Thanks for the great advice! I bought one thing on Wednesday night (the pre-BF sales were outstanding this year, without the crowds). I stayed home on Friday and checked out a few sales online. I did not purchase anything. I ran a few errands early on Saturday morning. The stores were empty. Presumably, all the shoppers were hungover from early rising the day before. A definite victory.
December 1st, 2009 at 11:10 pm
glad to be of some help!
– most bf deals started wednesday afternoon as you have noticed as well. in the past a lot of good deals were reserved for in-store purchases. this time, there were very few of those.
– amazon.com was apparently able to optimally price-match the best deals (price + shipping) offered by my favorite online store in real time. scary stuff. said store proceeded to offer a second ‘secret’ sale to undercut even more.