We’re just 9 days away from Black Friday. As a consumer and/or merchant — are you ready? Do the shopping events even matter to you or do you tend to avoid the crowds?

When I was in high school, I worked at Circuit City and later Best Buy (after they effectively put Circuit City out of business). I remember the night before Black Friday events, having to retag products in the store. While computers and TVs were marked down, all their accessories were marked up! I remember retagging a $24.99 HDMI cable with a $49.99 price tag. An early lesson in life about the unscrupulous profit maximizing tactics of big box retailers. So be careful out there!

Personally, I usually stay away from the shopping events. I’m not a big shopper in general, given that I’ve lived remotely out of a backpack and duffle bag for the past decade. But this year I just bought an investment property in Waynesville, NC, and for the first time in many years, I have a lot of things to buy. Washers, dryers, dishwashers, (yes, multiple — it’s a triplex). The timing of this acquisition is perfect for the shopping events, so I’ll be out there deal shopping with the rest of the world. Wish me luck.

And now, it’s my pleasure to bring you this week’s 43rd edition of Shopifreaks. This week I cover: 

-Shopify and Ledger’s class action lawsuit dismissed by California court

-$72 billion spent on e-commerce in October, but 2 billion out-of-stock messages

-Black Friday is back this year, Shopify predicts

-Cart.com is going headless

-SHOP hit an all time high

-Plus 7 seed rounds and acquisitions of interest

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