It's Black Friday week - prepare
It's Black Friday this Friday and locally there is big excitement and local shoppers have already started allocating budget and planning on how to shop on the day.
The week leading up Black Friday typically sees retailers offering deals on a wide range of products from the Monday, with the real discounts usually put up from Black Friday to Cyber Monday to make the shopping event last all weekend.
If you plan to buy products or services on Black Friday, you are likely to save a big chunk of what you would have spent at “normal” retail prices.
However, just because a retailer slaps a “Black Friday 2019” sticker on its items, don’t assume you are getting a good price. It's vital to do your homework for the big shopping weekend.
The steps below will help you take advantage of Black Friday and ensure you don’t get the wool pulled over your eyes and get too caught up in the shopping frenzy!
Make a list:
Your first step is to make a list of everything you want to buy on Black Friday- this will let you find what you are looking for quicker and stop you from buying unnecessary items. Decide what items are the most important to buy so you don’t run out of money before you have all your “essentials”.
Find prices and compare:
Once you have your list, find out how much “normal” pricing for the items are.Take each item and look at how much it costs from a variety of retailers - find pricing online, through promotional flyers etc. Once you have found the lowest price, note the price next to the item on your list.
Online stores:
If you plan to buy an item online, visit the online stores you may shop from on Black Friday and familiarise yourself with their interfaces, payment gateways etc. If you have ordered from the online store before, make sure your profile is up to date and active. Many online stores may have limited stock or time-based deals, and you do not want to miss out on them because you do not know how to buy and check out, or you have to re-register your profile.
Shop around:
While stocks are often limited and time sensitive on Black Friday, try to shop around before buying. The last thing you want is to buy Item A from Shop X, only to see said item at Shop Y for 20% less. Pick a few stores you expect to have good deals and quickly scan them to see if your listed items are available.
Check delivery times:
Black Friday is a good time to order Christmas, birthday, or holiday gifts – but you will want to check when they get delivered. Due to high demand and potential supply issues with retailers to fulfill all orders, you may have to wait several weeks for your Black Friday orders to be delivered.
Check online retailers’ information pages or terms and conditions when ordering to ensure the expected delivery time is acceptable for you.
Wake up early:
Certain online retailers and physical stores will launch their deals at times like 00:01 on 29th November, so make sure you are awake if needs be. Getting up early to order will also ensure that you miss peak buying traffic, which may cause deals to sell out, online stores to lag or crash, and online payments systems to fall over due to high volumes.
Visit your favourite sites this week and see if their Black Friday 2019 sales times are posted.
Article information credit: My Broadband
Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn for the latest retail news and humour.