I went to Walmart in Poway and took some pictures around 8pm. It was packed. I left 10 minutes later and there was 200+ people in line waiting to get in.
Target had about the same number of people waiting in line around 8:30pm.
Sports Authority was not that busy. I got there around 11:30pm and there were 20-30 people in the line already. 10 minutes to check out.
Best Buy around 1am was not that busy except for the ‘premium’ checkout line. They sent everyone buying computers/tablets through dedicated checkout in order to push upsells. There were maybe 50 people in the line ahead of me. I gave up 30 minutes later after I realized that it took them that long to process 5 people. Best Buy joined Staples on ‘do not bother with on BF’ list.
The line at Fry’s around 4am had 200-300 people (they opened at 6am). The checkout line there gets super long, but they have 50-60 cashiers open and they generally do a good job on BF. The parking lot at Lowes was empty at 7am and the store was not busier than usual.
I got most of the gifts (by number, not by $$) through Amazon. They had some very nice lightning deals.
