Like many, many others, I spent Thanksgiving night camping out in front of Target hoping to save a few hundred dollars on new merchandise. When the store finally opened its doors at 6:00 p.m. , I had to sprint through the store in order to actually get one of only 10 Xbox Ones the store had in stock. While the colorful flyers that arrived the weekend before Thanksgiving may seem enticing with their promises of huge savings, the fact is most people don’t even have a chance to buy the products advertised.

Stores often advertise impossibly good prices on popular items for Black Friday in order to attract customers. What they don’t tell you is that they often have fewer than 10 of these items actually in stock. Stores give away a few products at a loss in order to attract hundreds of customers to their store, most of whom won’t even come close to actually getting the deal they came for.

Some stores recognize that increasingly savvy shoppers are aware of their limited availability tricks and try to win back consumer confidence. One such store is Walmart, which offers a “one hour in-stock guarantee” on Black Friday items. This means that if the store runs out of the item you want, Walmart will ship it to you in time for Christmas. While this sounds fantastic on paper, Walmart isn’t being as honest as they want you to think. The store actually only offers an in-stock guarantee on select items. That $200 dollar HDTV you have your eye on? Only five or six people will actually have the pleasure of purchasing it.

While Black Friday might not be the shopper’s dream that stores want you to believe, there is nothing like quite like the thrill that comes from racing to get one of the three Xboxes that a store has in stock. As long as you manage your expectations, there is no reason that you can’t enjoy Black Friday each year, and maybe even score a deal or two.