Black Friday

[Wilpshire Blue]

An idea imported from the USA a few years ago - has anyone on here managed to get a real Black Friday bargain yet?

Lots of talk online of retailers like Argos and Currys artificially increasing prices during October on selected products so that they can be advertised as "massive savings" when they bring the price back down to normal for Black Friday.
It's also a time when the fake goods and websites become rampant, so that bargain might not be all you thought..

Many retailers won't participate as it just takes away their Christmas sales - most people are only going to buy something once, whether at Christmas or the end of Nov.

I suppose there are some who will be drawn in to spur-of-the-moment purchases but are we being conned?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5098377/Six-10-Black-Friday-deals-cheaper-times.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42093624

 

[biddy]

It used to be interesting in the first couple of years when Amazon were the only ones really doing it. They would only have 4 or 5 items per hour on the website just on Friday. Then in the last few hours they could have proper massive savings on things like consoles.

Now, looking at Amazons website its just an endless trawl through shit. As with all retailers now who jumped on the band wagon, it's just another sale.

 

[ABBEY]

NOPE .Will think about Christmas in December and not before.

 

[Alan]

I can't be arsed buying Christmas presents that people don't really want. I just give money now except for children, and the wife and I just make a holiday booking our presents, unless there is something special one of us wants.

 

[Barmitzvah Boy]

Don’t do Xmas presents.

 

[chor808]

I worked in a big box store in North America for a few months, I was working black Friday. The store had loss leaders piled up at the doors, as people piled in they grabbed a voucher for say a laptop or tv at a crazy price. Our job was to up sell, more memory, insurance, anti virus etc, all of which I refused to do. Needless to say I did not last long

Point being, bargains existed if you could keep saying no to other add ons. Over here it is just another sale.

 

[blueandwhitehalves]

I worked in a big box store in North America for a few months, I was working black Friday. The store had loss leaders piled up at the doors, as people piled in they grabbed a voucher for say a laptop or tv at a crazy price. Our job was to up sell, more memory, insurance, anti virus etc, all of which I refused to do. Needless to say I did not last long

Point being, bargains existed if you could keep saying no to other add ons. Over here it is just another sale.

Interesting you say that. I was considering getting a tablet yesterday so went into PC World where everything was adorned with Black Friday sales advertisements. I'm not a big spender on material things though so just said to the sales guy I wanted the cheapest one.

What then ensued was a 20 minute battle of being steered to more expensive ones, bombarded with upselling advice and lectured on the defiencies of the one I wanted. Having resisted all of this (which was quite stroppily delivered by the end) I was told the one I wanted wasn't in stock, or FIVE other models at or slighly above that price.

Was staggering, I can only assume they'd been instructed not to sell certain loss-leaders without the upselling additions. Illegal of course but PC World had always struck me as a rip-off place.