Some retailers are opting out of Black Friday. The report also said 48 percent of American shoppers last year finished most of their holiday shopping by Cyber Monday, up from 40 percent the previous year. About 25 percent of American consumers had already finished some holiday shopping before Halloween, according to a report from eMarketer, the research firm. Some shopping data suggests that consumers are wising up by shopping well ahead of Black Friday. They include ShopSavvy, an app for scanning item bar codes to do price comparisons online, and Slice, an app that tracks your previous purchases in case the price of something you recently bought gets marked down later, which may spur a refund. The New York Times also tested other shopping tools. Clicking the “Compare Now” button shows the bottom line pricing of the product (including tax and shipping costs) for various retailers. On the website, you enter the name of a product, and the tool pulls up a search.
So for this week, try other web tools like, which compares pricing of products across different retailers. Of course it’s a tad late to start price tracking now. Rendering the shopping event even more absurd, Walmart has said it would begin its Cyber Monday Sunday evening, so people wouldn’t have to stay up late to shop online. Price tracking data also illustrate that the lack of real deals holds true for Cyber Monday, the Monday after Black Friday that is billed as an online shopper’s heaven with numerous digital discounts. I found a well-reviewed Vizio television that was $1,633 in April but dropped to $1,098 this month, according to Camel Camel Camel. There’s still a way to take advantage of Black Friday by checking for price reductions on specific items - like a particular television set - that you have been wanting. “Shopping the Black Friday sales is no different from any other time,” he said. It wouldn’t hurt to buy items like this anytime you want, or to wait for the pricing to drop when a new version of the product is released.ĭaniel Green, the founder of Camel Camel Camel, agreed with these assessments. A pair of high-end Bose headphones has stayed firm at $299 for over a year, according to Camel Camel Camel’s database. Camel Camel Camel’s database showed that a Coleman six-person tent cost $169 in August, but the price is now about $236. Between June and August, when people are more likely to plan camping trips, tents often get heavier discounts on Amazon, for example. Price tracking also illuminates the seasonality of products. In other words, there are times of year when different types of products decline in price - and Black Friday isn’t one of them. This week, the same pair of speakers was again $127. A pair of bookshelf speakers made by Pioneer are typically $127, but that tends to drop significantly in August - to $60 in August 2014 and to $88 in August 2015, timed to the back-to-school season. Levite said, only about 0.6 percent, or 200 out of the approximately 34,000 deals online, which typically carry the same price tags inside retailers’ physical stores, will be good ones on Black Friday.Ĭamel Camel Camel’s database also shows some items have predictable pricing patterns over the course of a year.
They also look at whether the product is high quality and durable based on their own testing and other reviews, and whether the seller or brand has a reasonable return or warranty policy. Levite and his team track product prices across the web to unearth discounts on goods of all types, from gadgets to kitchenware. Levite, the deals editor of the product recommendations website The Wirecutter, for some data on just how beneficial the deals are on Black Friday - and the answer was not encouraging. Black Friday, which has traditionally been the moment to flock to stores for steep discounts, and which has evolved to also include major online sales events for retailers like Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart, is not all that it is billed to be. If you were hard-pressed to think of something, you would not be alone. Before lining up at a retail store or firing up your computer for Black Friday bargains this week, ask yourself one question: Have you ever scored a great deal from the annual post- Thanksgiving shopping bonanza?