AlmightySnoo 🐢🇮🇱🇺🇦Black Friday not the cheapest time to shop, says consumer group
thisisawayoflifeI had no concept of black Friday until the late 90s when I was told about it and looked at my sister like she was crazy for fighting over deals on socks and underwear. It wasn’t until a few years later when a girlfriend wanted to get her sibling a laptop and we stood in line at 3am at circuit shitty that I realized it really was all fucking stupid and not worth it.
I used to work at Microcenter for awhile. The best time to buy was always back to school. Holiday deals start at the beginning of November and are the exact same as Black Friday minus a few small door buster deals and maybe a special on a few models of pc. During back to school, pretty much everything is heavily discounted.
Would make sense because laptop companies always push out new products for back to school, and usually cpu releases happen months before back to school to allow production to ramp up to account for the sales.
Honestly the biggest reason was that college kids are more likely to buy the accidental damage warranty or have parents that will.
Twinklebreeze A lot of the deals on Black Friday are actually cheaper quality products. A TV specially made to be cheaper than the regular model. Less HDMI ports, lower quality parts. And the item/model number is slightly different.
NOT_RICKThat’s why I love deal communities like Slickdeals, if the deal sucks someone will be calling it out
I also like tools like Honey or CamelCamelCamel, which show you the actual price changes over time, and you can decide when the right time to buy is. Obviously, you never know when something will go on sale in the future, but it at least helps you see how good the current price is compared to the past month or year.
Keepa makes Camel x 3 obsolete, it shows far more information
ares35when you pay.. which costs more than prime itself does.
I think even the free version of Keepa is better to use. I see that for free accounts there are restrictions, but I haven’t noticed any at least with the Firefox addon.
TheFeatureCreatureThis is very noticeable on Amazon especially. So many “deals” from budget brands or one-off Chinese brands that nobody has never heard of. This is especially noticeable on Prime Day too.
I have worked with buyers at Best Buy that negotiate these “deals”. The manufacturers will create a near identical version of a higher quality product, but the model number will be a sub-model (like -a). When uninformed consumers are bargain shopping for a deal they will see that the “same” model is more expensive elsewhere and think they are getting a deal. This sub-model product will have cheaper components and fewer features and a higher product margin.
Some of these products would have very high failure rates but the companies still keep doing this because it helps to push their extended warranties. Then people buy them even when they buy higher quality products because they remember the failure on the other one.
Long story short, don’t shop on Black Friday for deals in electronics.
MelodiousFunkI got bit by this earlier in the year. I needed a smaller TV for the bedroom. I narrowed down the line I wanted. Target and Best Buy were the only two local stores to carry it. BB had the 2023 model, Target had a 2022 model with a sub-designation that was $50 cheaper. I went with Target because I didn't care if it was an older model, just needed something good enough. Well, it wasn't good enough, not even close. The color accuracy was so bad that the tint adjustment was useless — it was both too pink and too green no matter what. I dug out my old calibration disk and tried to adjust the color by isolating red/green/blue channels. The best-effort adjustments made it better, but still awful. I even connected it to the network (hardwire only, fuck "smart" appliances) just in case a firmware update helped. It did not, so back it went. Had to wait, multiple times in line and for someone to pull from the back, for like 45 minutes because they "don't do exchanges" so I needed to do a song and dance to get the sale price on a replacement purchase. Got the replacement home, same deal.
Took it back and went to Best Buy. Spent the extra $50. Perfect color out of the box. Lesson(s) learned.
i ended up with a cheapened 'walmart' model that was also a "last year's model". was the cheapest, smallest 1080p in the store a couple years back when prices were inflated and selection was weak. but i couldn't take it back, it was a gift.
i'm stuck with only 2 hdmi, no bt, and rca analog inputs i'll never use... but at least i got the better remote than a co-worker that has the next year's model--and i'm still grateful i was able to finally dump the 19 inch tube and the equally-small monitor that were serving as my "TVs".
Wouldn’t it be noticeable because this new “-a” model would have no ratings/reviews?
This practice is most common with in-store “doorbuster” type deals.
Generally an observant person will notice this, especially if they actually read the box. The model number extensions will vary though, some are 6 characters for example.
Long story short, don’t shop on Black Friday for deals in electronics.
Note, this does not apply if you use responsible stores like Micro Center.
Altima NEOOr know what you’re getting.
Micro Center is just epic every way. I love those guys.
I got a smart TV about 10 years ago on Black Friday. It was fine until a few years the screen “bruised”. Everything now has a purple hue and that is the “guest” tv. No other lcd tv I’ve had has had the same issues.
That’s undoubtedly true in general, but there are exceptions. For example:
It’s a little hard to tell just looking at specifications without directly comparing in person, but I think the Costco Black Friday-specific version of the Roland FP-10 digital piano actually manages to be better than the normal version (even before you consider that it’s cheaper and comes with a bunch of accessories). Specifically, it has 128 voice polyphony instead of the regular 96, and the only other difference I can find is that it advertises “a custom selection of tones curated by Roland and Costco exclusively for the FRP-2-ACR,” which I hope doesn’t mean they’re worse.
What a shocker that Black Friday is all a marketing scam.
Amazon are the worst for it. Instead of reducing the prices of their products, they will often just add the RRP next to the existing price and claim that it’s 35% off or whatever, even though they’ve actually only knocked about £5 off the price it was already.
HegarAmazon also secretly ran an algorithm called project Nessie that just straight up creates inflation.
The employee at Amazon who came up with this idea probably got a big fat bonus. To the detriment of everybody else.
☂️-I like to think that person is still working extra hours at the office and struggling to make rent.
It initially started with tech saavy who are in the know how of prices getting a good deal, but the more casual the practice became, so did the sale value as well, as it switched from techies getting a good deal to corpo creating black friday specific products to trick the layperson that theyre getting a good deal.
Sales are only good if the average person doing the shopping is also in the knowhow for pricing.
Sir_KevinBlowing up my phone every 2 hours with a “deal” is getting old real fast.
Had this exact same thing happen to me for the first time recently on a product I was watching. I was confused at first because I’d been watching it for a while and thought maybe the new price hadn’t refreshed or something, because it was 0% off.
Totally agreed, but is it the cheapest time to shop that you can plan for? Waiting for a good sale will always be the best plan, but you can always bet on black Friday having relatively good deals
skankhunt42There was an article a couple years back saying that manufacturers will use cheaper components for the same products, making it LOOK like the same TV but it’s actually built cheaper. The really bad ones will keep the same product number/SKU but others will usually append a letter or two.
So the over all cost might be less but you’re actually getting a poor quality version.
I feel like most retailers also mark up the prices a few months before than just bring it down to retail price
Plus it’s a convenient time of year when you’re buying Christmas gifts
MelllvarJust don’t buy stuff you don’t need. 100% savings every time.
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1 jrbaconcheese, 1 vote! DEMOCRACY!
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I agree with you, but the word “need” means different things to different people…
vaultdweller013I need a m1 flamerthrower, a davey crocket, and a one way ticket to saudi Arabia. Doesnt mean ill get any of them.
SteveI’ve never been one to shop for deals.
I’ve always thought you get 100% off the things you don’t buy.
I save quite a bit of money only buying things I really need, or are truly important to me.
snooggumsSame, although if there is something I want/need and there isn't a rush it is nice to hold out for a sale so I spend even less.
A friend of mine once had this big ass box in his living room. I asked what the deal with that is. He said he bought a tv because it was "too cheap to not buy" the tv was worse than the one he had, so he moved that tv like twice and after 3 or so years he gave it away because he moved in with his girlfriend who also already had a tv. He still somehow thinks that was a good investment because how cheap it was.
yamaniiThe logic is that you buy what you need during this time, but it became a scam a few years back.
downpunxxThe cheapest time to shop is AFTER Christmas, Jews know this. Thank you.
Maybe, but stores have gotten a lot better at inventory and so they don't have as good of sales as they used to
Slickdeals is my go to.
The whole article referring to Which? with their question mark wassss a pain
agree that the name is silly, it apparently also broke the tl;dr bot below
Most items, especially large ticket items, have an annual schedule where new models are releasee and previous models are discounted to clear the way for the new ones. Just google the type of product you want to buy to see when they are discounted most.
Camel Camel Camel is pretty good price tracker too.
I was looking at a robo sweeper on Amazon and noticed it was suddenly a Black Friday special - same price.
modifierDamn, not even kidding you, I think I just fell for that last night. It arrives tonight.
Camelcamelcamel.com forever
Does that work for you? Everything I try it in like the last year or so it says no history.
I think sometimes they make a new listing to hide from the price history checking
Yeah I’ve seen some items that have no Amazon seller history, but have third party history… Despite Amazon themselves selling it.
GreatAlbatrossI’m pretty sure Amazon neutered the camels during the pandemic.
Keepa browser extension has saved me thousands over the years