Who gets Black Friday cheers and jeers?

Who were the winners and losers on Black Friday?

More shoppers came out this year than last year, but they spent less. Some of the popular small items were sold out before Cyber Monday sales. We’re not shopping from work today, but we do have our eyes on a few deals online if we finish our work in time.

Partner site DealNews has come up with its list of “cheers and jeers” for merchants for their Black Friday performance.

• Video: Black Friday score card

The big winner, they say, was Amazon, which cut prices live to match the best deals offered at Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and nearly every other store. Blu-ray and DVD movie prices hit new lows, with popular films selling for $10 or less.

Among the merchants to whom DealNews offered “cheers” were:

• Office Depot, for free shipping all week. If you’re still shopping, by the way, DealNews has some Office Depot coupons that are still good.
• Wal-Mart, for putting all its Black Friday doorbusters online at 4 a.m. This cheer was a bit half-hearted, however, because the best deals sold in minutes, both online and in stores.
• TigerDirect.com, which donated more than $100,000 to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, through its “Pink Friday” promotion.

Among the merchants receiving “jeers” from DealNews were:

• Newegg, whose servers bogged down under all the traffic, meaning that, by the time customers slogged through the order process, the items were sold out.
• Sears, whose sale prices were substantially worse than its usual prices and higher than competitors’ prices.
• Costco, which offered as its lead Black Friday product a GPS deal that had been in effect since Nov. 7.

What did you think of this year’s Black Friday deals? Or are you too busy with Cyber Monday shopping to comment?

Related reading:

• Holiday Shopping Guide
• 6 tips for shopping safely online
• Deal sharks: The Web’s best shoppers
• 10 big secrets of online retailers