Target faces backlash over their Black Friday giveaway — shoppers call the deal 'diabolical'
Hundreds of shoppers waited in line overnight in the cold, only to be left utterly disappointed.
Dec. 2 2025, Published 8:28 a.m. ET
Facing additional competition from e-commerce giants, retailers are trying to come up with deals that stand out in a bid to attract customers at a time when rising prices could affect holiday shopping. One of the is Target, which announced a giveaway that had a lot of shoppers excited. The company said that it would give a complimentary gift bag to shoppers who were the first to walk in through the door on Black Friday at 6 am. As a result, several shoppers lined up outside select stores as early as 2:30 am in the morning of Black Friday, only to be handed a bag with very underwhelming items.
As per a report in Business Insider, the bag only contained fun-size candy, drink mix samples, shampoo, and a deck of Uno cards. Target did release a statement later on in which they said that ten shoppers per participating store received bags with extra prizes ranging in value from $99 to $350. However, with reports of as many as 500 shoppers lining up before 6 am, that was simply not good enough.
TikTok creator War Cry Pod (@warcrypod) tore into the company, stating that the people were seeing the downfall of a great company over “swag bags.” The creator called the bags diabolical as people had been sacrificing their sleep to line up for them, only to get some small bags of candies and a deck of Uno cards. The video has received more than 230,000 likes so far on TikTok, and many of the viewers agreed with the creator’s point of view.
“How dare y’all make people wait…like they’re (shoppers) showing up at 2:30. Y’all gonna have them wait outside in the freezing cold in some of these areas, just for y’all to give them gummy clusters, some eyeliner, and a deck of Uno cards. That’s diabolical, man,” he said. The creator went on to say that the store gave away these big bags with the tiniest items inside them.
When Target announced its Black Friday giveaway, a lot of people might not have expected there to be such big lines outside the stores. They were surprised to see so many people take part in the whole fiasco, and they made their thoughts clear in the comments section of the video on TikTok. “Target had massive layoffs in October. Why did people think they would be getting anything good? They are broke 😂,” one user commented.
“Target is not a friend to conservatives, liberals. No matter where you stand target is not your friend. Walmart is the same,” another shopper added. “The people who stood in line for the swag bags deserve everything target gave,” one more user noted. From the comments, it is clear that a lot of people were boycotting Target, so, the company had to come up with something to attract customers in the holiday season.
For more of such content, follow @warcrypod on TikTok.
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