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By Grass Weisbaum
After weeks of "leaked" announcements and early deals, the most popular shopping of the year, Black Friday, is almost there. Of course, Black Friday is no longer a day; it's now an ongoing event that starts right after Halloween. Serious bargain hunters have already shopped early on Black Friday.
Major retailers such as Kohl's, JCPenney, Costco, Target and Amazon have already launched some of their Black Friday offerings. More large retail chains will be launching deals and patio doors on Wednesday.
"It really has become black November," said Marshal Cohen, senior adviser to the NDP group for the industry. "Retailers are realizing that we are out of money just because they start their sales earlier; this is the market share and the acquisition of this early dollar. "
This marketing frenzy, combined with an apparently endless number of sales throughout the year, tarnishes the appeal of Black Friday?
About half of consumers surveyed in mid-October by WalletHub said Black Friday does not offer the best deals of the year.
WalletHub compared the current price to Black Friday for a wide range of items, such as television, computers, home appliances, video games, clothing and jewelery. Result: 14% of the items "offered no savings" – had the same price or were more expensive compared to their prices before Black Friday.
That said, the shopping experts contacted by NBC News expect to see exceptional offers unveiled Wednesday and Thursday on all types of goods.
Edgar Dworsky, founder of ConsumerWorld.org, regards Black Friday as "the best shopping day of the year".
Angela Davis, who runs the FrugalLivingNW website, said she "loved Black Friday" because it was not just about buying Christmas presents.
"I do a lot of personal clothing shopping for the winter during Black Friday week," she said. "The clothes, shoes and accessories are very interesting: jackets and winter boots, tons of women's clothing. Offers on small kitchen appliances are crazy Black Friday, as well as crazy offers on tools and large kitchen appliances. "
Do your homework
We all love to save money and retailers work overtime to create excitement for their sales.
"Do not get caught up in hysteria," Dworsky said. "Some circulars are 60 or 70 pages long. It is clear that each of these articles is not a good deal. "
To overcome the hype of Black Friday, you must do your homework before making your purchases. Consumer World's "10 tips for winning a case at Black Friday Week" include:
- Read the announcements: find flyer scans for dozens of large retailers on BFAds.net. Check the websites of your favorite stores for "hidden" deals and look for coupons on their social networking sites. Gottadeal.com's Black Friday Charts allows you to search for specific items by store or product and sort by price.
- Evaluate offers: Use a pricing tool such as Google Shopping and CamelCamelCamel to separate good sales from ho-hum.
- Look for the product: "A low price on a lousy product is not a good deal," warns Dworsky. Read reviews posted in online stores, but if it's a major purchase, such as a TV, computer, or appliance, look for professional reviews on trusted sites, such as Consumer Reports, Wirecutter, or PCMag.com.
"A lot of the door-to-door transactions we see on electronic items may not actually be the products you want to own, so it's a good idea to check the specifications," said Jim Wilcox, executive editor. Head of Consumer Reports, at NBC News.
Discounted computers may have slower processors or less storage. Some TVs with doors are specially designed for Black Friday. These "derivatives" have unique model numbers, so it's impossible to find reviews.
"These derivative models come out just before Black Friday, so you do not know how they will perform," Wilcox said. "This is especially true for secondary and tertiary brands where prices are low, but you do not know how good they are."
TIP: According to Consumer Reports, the best prices on high-end TVs are typically in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, and then in late February and March (when stores want to dump last year's models),
Do you really need to go to the stores?
For many, shopping after Thanksgiving dinner or camping in the shops early on Black Friday morning is a tradition not to be missed. Retailers hope that their doors will take you to the store, where you will be tempted to buy more expensive items.
Do not forget: Doorbuster offers on large electronics items are often "limited in quantity" in most stores. Therefore, unless you come out of the night and you are on the front line when the doors open, you will miss it. And usually, there is no rain check for these offers.
While some exclusive offers are only available at the store, most of the things you want are probably online, according to shopping experts, as retailers try to expand their online businesses.
"I fully support people who do it for fun, but the amount of money that you can actually save is not worth it as I bother and fight to try to get it back. "agreement," said Davis of Frugal Living NW.
Frank Behring, who runs the Black Friday sales charts for gottadeal.com, said he has seen a decrease in the number of door-to-door transactions in stores.
"Everything is online now, so there's what you could call online gatekeepers," Behring told NBC News. "You must be online at a specific time. And it's not just Thanksgiving or Black Friday, some of these offers went live on Monday. "
Many of these online offers are available for a limited time, sometimes for only four or five hours.
If you really want a specific computer or TV model, do not wait too long. Quantities on some of these online door models are limited and the seller may be missing. E-commerce sites sometimes cancel completed orders when they run out of supplies.
"It happened a lot last year," said Behring. "Once they realize that they do not have enough supplies, they send an e-mail stating that your order has been canceled and that the door porter is not not available."
If you miss a Black Friday market, especially an electronic product, check again on Cyber Monday. Most of Cyber Monday's offers are similar to Black Friday's, NBC News shopping experts said.
Herb Weisbaum is the ConsumerMan. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or visit the ConsumerMan website.
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