Black Friday postmortem: Scuffles, sales reports and more

With Black Friday noting more than a tangle of receipts, empty shopping bags and tightly wrapped presents for another year; it's time to look back and see how shoppers and retailers made out on the most hyped and anticipated shopping day of the year.

Overall, the good news this year is that despite several incidents of shopper rage, no one lost their life over a Zhu Zhu Pet. Even though there were shoppers behaving badly in stores, coupon users at RetailMeNot saved almost a half million dollars on Black Friday and Amazon earned big cheers from Dealnews.com for matching almost every Black Friday sale competitors offered.

If you missed out on our liveblog of Black Friday this is a great place to see what went down on Black Friday 2009.

Scuffles:
The Consumerist combed through police blotters and local news reports to find the worst Black Friday behavior of 2009.

For law enforcement in towns with a Walmart or a Toys R Us, it was a Busy Thursday night and Friday morning as a fight broke out at Walmart in Rancho Cucamonga, California and a Walmart in Upland California had to kick out shopper and reset the store after shoppers ripped into pallets of merchandise and began shopping before the 5 a.m. kickoff.


At Toys R Us where Zhu Zhu Pets were the to-buy item of the day, several parents lost their heads with reports of fights at locations in Indiana. Tasers and pepper spray made an appearance at a Toys R Us in Memphis, Tennessee after several late arrivals tried to cut in line!

Consumerist has more reports of Black Friday fights and towed vehicles for anyone who wants to remember why they waited for Cyber Monday sales.

The Sales Report:
While it is still early for retailers to talk about how well they did on Black Friday, popular coupon destination RetailMeNot has released its Black Friday Special Report, which shows a 64.5% increase in Black Friday traffic and $2.5 million in sales originating from RetailMeNot.

According to a press release emailed to WalletPop, Black Friday shoppers who used RetailMeNot to find coupons saved an impressive $484,000, favoring Amazon, Kohl's and Best Buy.

The top coupons of the Black Friday from RetailMeNot.com were for 15% off at Kohl's and Free shipping at Best Buy, Victoria's Secret, JC Penney, Macy's and Bath & Body Works.

Cheers and Jeers:
Dealnews published its list of cheers and jeers; celebrating and shaming the sales and practices of retailers on Black Friday. Notable selections include.

Cheers: To Walmart, who put 100% of its Black Friday doorbusters online at 4 a.m. on Friday. We must regrettably offer a mild jeer to Walmart at the same time, since its best Black Friday deals sold out in mere minutes. (We've heard of "Limit one per store," but this felt like "Limit one per Web site.")

Cheers: To TigerDirect.com and its "Pink Friday" promotion, which this year donated at least $100,000 to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Even though Black Friday and Cyber Monday are past us, we still have a few more Cyber Monday style sales coming up including "Green Monday" on December 7, which marks holiday shipping deadlines and Free Shipping Day for the procrastinators who don't want to pay for guaranteed shipping by December 24 Delivery, so stay tuned for more holiday shopping deals.