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Preparing Yourself for Black Friday
It’s almost here – that American holiday-unto-itself: Black Friday! I have to admit that I’m behind schedule for my Black Friday shopping this year – and that’s too bad because I actually have some stuff I’d like to purchase. Besides some normal gift items, I have some slightly-bigger ticket household items that I’d like to pick up at a good price. When you have significant purchases for Black Friday, you’ll want to get prepared beforehand in order to make a successful day of it. Here are a couple tips for gearing up for Black Friday shopping.
1) Decide exactly what you are going to buy beforehand
Especially for more expensive items, I would recommend not being swayed by the ads. Rather, decide what you want to get and then look for specials on those specific items. For us this year, we want to get a new digital camera (the LCD no longer works on our current model), a new vacuum cleaner (our vacuum is currently in a few pieces in the back of our van), and a laptop for my dad (a fair one at a very low price). I rely on Consumer Reports for most non-trivial purchases, so I have started my research there.
I have a very good idea of which digital camera I want to purchase. I still have to complete researching the vacuums. For the computer, the exact model doesn’t matter as much – I have a general idea of the specs that I want and will just choose the best one that meets the minimum requirements from the ads. But for the digital camera and vacuum, even though I will have a good idea what I want, I still need to get out and actually touch them and play with them before purchasing one (don’t you hate the cameras that take too long to actually snap the picture after you press the button!). I am behind schedule, but my plan is to decide exactly what I want in a digital camera and vacuum by tomorrow and get out to the stores to confirm that before Thanksgiving.
2) Check out the ads as early as possible
Sometimes you can’t decide the exact model you want before seeing the ads. For instance, if there are a few different vacuum cleaners that would be acceptable, the one I decide to buy will be the one (if any) that I can get for the best deal on Black Friday. Thus I can’t wait until the ads are delivered with the Thursday newspaper since I won’t be able to get out and touch and feel them before Black Friday. And the last thing you want to to in the stress and crowds of BF are to be playing around trying to decide which special deal you want to buy. First, you just don’t want to deal with the hassle in the midst of the big crowds. More importantly, if you’re out to get a good deal but are still doing research that morning, the good deals might be gone before you are able to decide what you want.
In a previous post, I mentioned the value of black friday preview sites such as GottaDeal.com’s Black Friday site . Using these sites is a good idea for you to be able to see if any of your prospective items are on going to be on sale. Doing this early enough gives you time to get out to the stores and check out the specific items that will be on sale. I guess I could go out and check out all the possible models that I would consider purchasing, but I don’t really have the time or inclination to do that. So, I’ll pick a few options, check out the preview sites to see which will be on sale, and then get to the stores before BF to decide which one or two I really want.
3) Strategize
Next you want to plan out your BF shopping strategy. If you really want to get some popular deals, you won’t be able to fool around browsing a bunch of stores – you’ll need to have a good idea of where you want to go and what you want to get.
There are two main criteria to consider during your planning:
- How popular the item will be
- How much you want to get that specific deal
I usually order the items I want to purchase by priority and then try to optimize my route to get as many as possible. Even if you see a great deal that you want, you will need to be realistic about whether or not you are actually interested in exerting the effort necessary to secure the item(s). For instance, if you are looking for that fabulous deal on the huge HDTV but there will only be a few in the store, that is obviously the place you will want to go first.
You can usually get a pretty good idea of which items will be the most popular via an educated guess or by checking out the BF preview site forums to see which sales are getting a lot of buzz. For the really big deals, you’ll have to get there very early or maybe even camp out the night before. If you are not willing to do that, you should be realistic about your chances of securing one of those huge deals. Personally, I will not go that far (certainly not for a vacuum or laptop!). I will still get up pretty early and head first to the store with the item I want to try my hardest to purchase. After that, I’ll head the stores with items that I don’t want quite as badly as well as the ones with deals I expect to be available later in the morning.
Some other things to consider
Do not overspend in the frenzy of the day. With all the people out early in the morning following seemingly unbridled consumerism, it is sometimes easy to get caught up and overspend your budget. The best way to control this if, of course, to make a list and stick to it .
I mentioned above that you should not be swayed by the ads. When it comes to big items especially, make your list before you start looking at the ads. Just because something is a great deal, does not mean you should buy it (and it’s certainly a good bet you don’t "need" it). Remember the old joke – how much money will you save by buying a $3000 HDTV at 60% off? The answer, of course, is you haven’t saved ANY money – instead, you’ve spent $1200!
Of course, for smaller items I do not follow such a strict plan. I will go ahead and check out all of the ads on Thursday to see if any smaller items strike my fancy. But even small purchases add up, so make sure you keep track of what your overall expenditures will be.
Black Friday will not be the end of the sales this year
The economy is not doing so well this year (have you heard that?). The stock market is down, housing prices are down, unemployment is up, and as a result people are not spending money like they have in years past. What does that mean? It means that retailers will continues sales up through Christmas to entice shoppers to spend. In fact, you’ve probably already seen some really good sales before BF. Walmart has been running big in-store and online-only specials for the past few weeks. Circuit City is currently running Daily Doorbuster Deals through Wednesday as well. And unless BF is crazy huge for some reason, I expect these deals to continue all the way up until Christmas.
So, I’ll be out there Friday morning, but I will certainly not be camping out or pushing and shoving to grab stuff. I do expect the deals to be big, but as I also expect to see big crowds on BF and good deals up through Christmas, I do not feel the urgency to make all of my purchases on BF.
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Black Friday Specials…
A bargain is something you cannot use at a price you cannot resist. -Franklin Jones
) Happy Holidays!…
I think black Friday is the only one day when everyone gets up early in the morning to do the shopping. I like it its fun and we get good deals which is worth waking up. Thanks for writing it and making it so special.