Black Friday will be here shortly. This means you need to start planning now! To get the best deals on Black Friday, you have to do more than stand in line at 4:00 a.m. and race from store to store. You must figure out what you need to purchase first and then decide where you will get the most for your money. The ads are available for preview for most stores, which means you can start your strategies now. Believe it or not, many of the deals will happen from the comfort of your own home or before Black Friday itself, which is why you need to be prepared with the following strategies for the hottest categories this year.
Tech Bargains
The hottest category of bargains this year is the tech deals. You will find deals on everything from TVs to game consoles at your favorite stores like Sam’s Club, Costco, and Best Buy. This year, the deals are focused on 4K UHD TVs, 1080p 60-inch and 65-inch TVs, and the two most popular game consoles, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, for in-store deals. If you don’t want to leave the comfort of your own home, you can shop online at Amazon, Walmart, and even Best Buy for some of the greatest tech deals. Coupons are often available for these sites right on their website or on sites like RetailMeNot, where you can find percentage off savings and deals for free shipping.
Home Goods
Black Friday is the perfect day to purchase items for your home—especially larger priced items, such as Dyson vacuums or KitchenAid mixers. You can also find some of the best prices on small kitchen appliances, bed & bath, and kitchen & dinning this time of year. The best stores to shop for home goods include Home Depot, Target, Walmart, Kohl’s, and Amazon. Many of these stores have been known to knock off as much as 70% off of the regular prices of many household items for Black Friday alone. In addition to their discounts, Kohl’s usually increases their offering for Kohl’s cash and gives consumers $15 back in cash that can be spent at a later date at Kohl’s for every $50 spent—they typically only offer $10 for every $50 spent.
Toys
If you want to get your hands on this year’s most sought after toys for kids, then your best bet is to purchase them on Black Friday. Retailers like Toys “R”Us, Target, and Walmart have already started leaking some of the toy deals that will be available. Name brands like Lego, Frozen, Star Wars, and Shopkins are hitting the lists of the most popular toys with the best deals this year. Many of the toy sales start the night of Thanksgiving in store, so if you want the best deals, you will have to head out right after your holiday dinner.
Along with the immense savings you can find on Black Friday or Thanksgiving for some stores, many stores offer one-day deals or pre-Black Friday sales. Target is a great example of this as they offer a different toy each day for 50% off of the retail price, for one day only. You can find out the toy of the day when you download Target’s Cartwheel app and check for the update on a daily basis. Cartwheel is a free app for your smartphone that offers coupons that you click on to “clip.” Then at checkout, just show your barcode to the cashier, and the savings are applied to your transaction. Amazon will also offer Lightning Deals on a daily basis and typically sell fast. Lightning Deals are showcased on Amazon’s Deal Page and only last for a few hours, with the countdown shown right underneath the product.
The key is to continuously check back with your favorite retailers to see what is hot that day—you might find that you can do a large portion of your shopping before Black Friday ever hits. That way you can knock out your must-have items and still have time to stand in the long department store lines to grab yourself a pair of shoes, a purse, or clothing for 50-70% off as the department stores have always been known to offer. The key to successful Black Friday shopping is to plan ahead, constantly search your favorite retailer’s sites, and have a concrete strategy when the day comes.
