Black Friday and Cyber Monday mean hundreds of online deals, discounts, and in-person doorbusters, but these tips will help you tell which ones are really worth your money.
It’s easy to get caught up in Black Friday shopping madness. Deals have already begun to leak, retailers are eager to get you in for doorbuster bargains before your Thanksgiving dinner has settled, and online retailers are happy to offer Black Friday deals and even more discounts on Cyber Monday.
If you didn’t know better, you’d assume there’s no better time to shop, and retailers save their best bargains for what seems like the extension of a holiday — but you know better.
You already know that not every discounted TV is worth buying, and not every gadget on sale on Black Friday is at its best price. But what you may not know is how to tell the good discounts from the bad ones. We talked to Adam Burakowski, deals editor at Wirecutter, the New York Times company that reviews products, whose entire job is to sift through those deals to find out which are worthwhile. He and the rest of the Wirecutter Deals team are tracking the best of those Black Friday deals here, and we asked for his predictions for this year’s holiday shopping season.
Black Friday deals and discounts have already started, really — more and more retailers try to jump-start the season by unveiling deals on November 1, and carry them through the rest of the holiday shopping season. To be fair, most of this is really a shameless attempt to get you shopping early and keep you hooked through the season, but there are still some bargains to be found if you look closely.
“Generally, if you’re selective and do your research, you can find legitimate deals in almost every product category,” Mr. Burakowski said. “For this year, I’d say take a good look at the small appliances ( instant pot), smart home, and headphone categories. We’ve seen some really strong pricing in those areas already with some of the best pricing of the year.” He also mentioned that consumer electronics like HDTVs, video games and game consoles all see some of their most aggressive pricing during Black Friday, or the days before and after it. Keep an eye out for deals there, too.
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As for what you’re better off buying another time? “I’ve never been too impressed with outdoors gear or large appliances during Black Friday,” Mr. Burakowski said. “I wouldn’t necessarily say they’re “bad” deals, you won’t get ripped off, but there’s no real point in buying them and you’ll get better prices at other times of the year.”
The key to buying on Black Friday or Cyber Monday is to make sure that what you’re shopping for is at its best price of the year, and that it’s something you’ll need as soon as possible (for the holidays, as an example.) So how do you determine if that deal really is the best of the year before you hit the stores Black Friday morning or shop online on Cyber Monday?
The key is to do a little homework now before the craziness of the season sets in as retailers add more exclamation points to their tweets and sale emails. Check current prices of the things you’re thinking about buying, and make note of them. Keep an eye on them heading into the shopping season to make sure that discount on Black Friday is really worth the time or energy.
“There are price tracking tools like CamelCamelCamel and Honey that let you know Amazon’s price history on products,” Mr. Burakowski said. “While that doesn’t mean other stores didn’t offer better sales, it gives you a good idea of what online pricing has been like the past few months.”
CamelCamelCamel and Invisible Hand are great for checking price trends to make sure you’re getting the best price before you check out. Similarly, Mozilla, the company behind the web browser Firefox, just unveiled Price Wise, a new price tracking extension that will reveal whether the item you’re looking at is actually a deal or not, and helps you compare with other major retailers. It’s currently available to Test Pilot users. Honey, like Mr. Burakowski mentioned, is another extension that tries to get you coupon codes to shave a few dollars off your cart before you check out.
Finally, there’s no reason to jump if you see a sale on something you want, unless you think it’s going to sell out. Similarly, there’s no point in lining up in front of brick and mortar stores, either. Those doorbuster deals aren’t going to be so good you can’t find matching (or better) prices online. For more tips, check out our guide to smart shopping on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
If you want to be absolutely sure the deals you see are worthwhile, skip big box stores entirely and head out to your local retailers and shops on Small Business Saturday .
Small businesses may not always have the cheapest overall prices — but most drastically cut their own prices for events like Small Business Saturday in order to get shoppers in the door, and even if you wind up paying a bit more, you’re helping a local business and their employees stay in business in a highly competitive landscape.
Similarly, consider small businesses and shops that operate online for Small Business Saturday as well. Many offer shoppers free or discounted shipping and special coupon codes for registering or for signing up for promotional newsletters.
It’s easy to talk about tracking prices and walking the line between desire and deals when Black Friday is staring you in the face, but let’s be real: even those great holiday deals may pale compared to better prices other times during the year. For example, while HDTVs usually see great pricing around the holidays, they also see a round of discounts shortly after the New Year — and right before the Super Bowl.
“I’d say people go in looking to upgrade certain categories of items, or hold off in the fall for some more expensive items because they correctly expect Black Friday will have better than average prices,” Mr. Burakowski said.
“That doesn’t mean they couldn’t have received better prices a couple months before, but if they’re not people who regularly follow deals, they’re likely to save more in significantly less time than they would have buying at other times of the year. So for most shoppers, the personal desire is high and beats the objective nature of the deal by a bit.
