Black Friday: Worth the Hype?

So today is Black Friday where I am and I work for a non profit second hand retail store. I hadn't gotten the task to have a shift on Black Friday before so I will admit part of me is a bit nervous; seeing as I've read all kinds of horror stories about what the American stores have to deal with during this time of year. However something struck me odd earlier this morning: When I looked on several on the websites of the local retail stores in my area, I noticed that most deals are only up to 40% off most items and on my Amazon, I'm seeing max of 30% discounts. Nothing major or eye catching.
Why is that?
Maybe it's the result of the economy being less than favourable especially nowadays.
Maybe it's how Canada has Black Friday weeks and so the deals are not as big if it was going to be for one day only as an alternative.

No it seems to be that it's a combo of both. I've been seeing BF deals for most of the month now for both in store and online and the deals are not significant...at least nowhere near enough to cause retail mayhem, per se. So is this due to big online stops like Amazon pretty much taking over the e-shopping scene and lowering the amount of in store hoopblah that supposedly takes place annually? 

Well that's the trouble: there's tons of factors to consider. 

BF sales 20 years ago would have been massive, crowded, and with a chance of crazy customers doing what they do when they see a 50" 1080p TV on sale for only $150--or even 20 rolls of toilet paper for $5.00.
(I'm just giving random examples) 

Now? From what I can see, it's no more special than a regular boxing day sale or even Cyber Monday deals. So is BF worth the hype? In my opinion--no. While there are deals, to be sure, they're nowhere near as good from what I had seen before online shopping really took off in popularity. But this is not me saying "don't have a look around". I'm just saying be aware of the smaller sales that are happening versus some of the larger sales happening around this time, even though those might be harder to find, depending on your region. Here in Canada, in my exp so far, there's not much of a difference between bf deals and regular sales that pop off once in a while during any other time of the year. 

What do you guys think? Lemme know in the comments :)