Black Friday used to be a single day of shopping excess. People
woke up early the day after Thanksgiving, headed to malls, and
fought over deeply discounted sweaters, coffee makers, and TVs. If
you looked hard enough, you could find amazing deep discounts amid
piles of questionable bargains. A while later online retailers
cooked up Cyber Monday in a bid for some of that free-flowing
cash.
Over time, Black Friday and Cyber Monday blended together to
form one long, holiday weekend of sales. Then that four-day period
gradually morphed into sales throughout November. Recently, the
deals even began leaking into October, and that looks to be the
case again this year. In fact, we’re already finding early Black Friday deals for gaming
hardware.
The big unknown factor for 2021 isn’t when Black Friday starts.
It’s how shipping delays and backups at major ports will affect product availability—and prices. If
everything is selling as fast as it goes on shelves, major price
reductions could fail to appear. The advice this year is to buy
early, but even then, you can still shop smart. Our tips below
simplify deal hunting and make it easier to spot a juicy deal. So
let’s dig in!
Latest Black Friday 2021
news
Component shortages might make it more difficult to buy an
affordable laptop this year. During its third-quarter earnings
report, Intel predicted that its partners would prioritize higher-end PCs to make the
most of limited supply of computer parts. So don’t wait to start
your holiday shopping—you can use our tips below to help you still
find good prices.
When is Black Friday this
year?
Technically, Black Friday is always the fourth Friday of
November—the day after Thanksgiving. For 2021, that’s November 26.
It’ll be followed by Cyber Monday on November 29. But the real
answer to the question is that Black Friday discounts have already
begun. Some are worth your attention, too. Retailers now like to
sprinkle a few killer deals throughout the lead up to Black Friday
week. You may be able to grab items on your list for great prices
well ahead of late November.
How to get the
best Black Friday tech deals
Option 1: Let us do the
work
The easiest way to score rock-bottom prices is to let us find
them for you. As they begin, check back here for links to the top
deals we’ve found.
Option 2: Wade
into the fray with our help
The other option is to strike out on your own. It’s not hard if
you’re prepared—you just need to set aside time for it. Even then,
you can zip pretty fast through all websites, circulars, forum
posts, and email newsletters if you follow these tips.
Make a plan (and a budget)
Jotting down your planned purchases helps in knowing when to
pull the trigger on a deal—and for keeping track of all the
packages that come in.
To actually save money—and not blow that cash on just more stuff—
you need to make a plan. Whether it’s in your head or written out
concretely, know in advance what you plan to shop for, the price
you prefer to pay, and the max price you’re willing to pay.
This list will look different for everyone. For me, the price I
prefer to pay usually involves a hefty discount, and my max price
usually isn’t too much higher. I also make note of products I use
regularly and should stock up on, items I might need to replace
soon, and stuff I’ve considered buying if deeply discounted.
Bargain hunting doesn’t always go predictably, of course. Some
years, you’ll nail nearly every major thing on your list. During
other years, you’ll find a deal on just a few things, but also
unexpectedly snag five stackable 1-year licenses for Microsoft
Office 365 Personal for $15 each. (Please bring that one back,
Newegg.) But having a plan means you’ll know exactly what to keep
an eye out for, and what’s worth zeroing in on.
Research prices in advance
Camelcamelcamel is a site that shows detailedhistorical price data for products sold on Amazon. Keepa.com is
another popular alternative.
Not all deals that crop up during Black Friday are good
discounts. Many are mediocre and designed to lure you spending
money because you think you’re getting a bargain.
Doing research on the products you want to buy can save you some
serious cash, whether or not you make a spending plan. A few
different sites can help provide the background knowledge you’ll
need:
- Camelcamelcamel.com or Keepa.com: These
sites show historical price information for products on Amazon.
Because there’s a graph showing the trend over time, you can tell
how often a product goes on sale, what the most common sale prices
are, and what the lowest price was. - BlackFriday.com:
More retailers have begun releasing their circulars early, but for
those that haven’t, sites like BlackFriday.com publish scans of
leaked Black Friday ads for major retailers (Best Buy, Target,
Newegg, Fry’s, Micro Center, etc.). While none of these prices are
guaranteed to go live, these scans provide early reconnaissance on
which retailers will have which products on sale, and roughly what
the prices will be. - Slickdeals.net: This set of
forums crowdsources deal-hunting. Frontpage deals are supposed to
be the absolute crème de la crème of the bunch, while a
fire hose of daily deals lives in the Hot Deals forum. Search for a
product name or model number to see any posts related to it. Not
all products will have results (or relevant results), but sometimes
you can find the last best price on a product and when that was.
Keep your search term as simple as possible (just one or two
keywords specific to the item) to improve your results.
If you plan to take advantage of Amazon’s Lightning deals, which
don’t reveal the sale price until the deal starts, doing this
research in advance is particularly useful. When a Lightning deal
goes live, you’ll know immediately if it’s worth your time.
Set deal alerts
on Slickdeals and Amazon
Using Slickdeals’ alert feature can help you catch deals that
you might otherwise miss.
If you sign up for a free account on Slickdeals, you can set up
to 200 different deal alerts that can ping you via email, the
Slickdeals mobile app, private message through the site, and/or
desktop browser notifications. (You’ll receive a notice whenever a
member posts a deal that matches your keywords.) These alerts can
be customized based on popularity and forum.
Amazon offers a similar service for its Lightning deals, which
are available for only a limited time on the site. (They expire at
a certain time or when the allotted inventory runs out, whichever
comes first.) If you use the Amazon app on your phone or tablet,
you can get alerts when the deal starts by watching the deal.
You can also set deal alerts through Camelcamelcamel.com and
Keepa.com for Amazon deals, but they don’t always get sent in time
to act on the deal. Still, setting them up doesn’t hurt.
Sign up
for email newsletters at specific stores
Email newsletters can be a good source of deals, for a few
reasons.
Some deals are only available if you’re already on the store’s
email list. Newegg, for example, often creates coupon codes that
only work for email subscribers.
Signing up for a store’s email newsletter can alert you to hot
sales.
Other sites offer codes for discounts and free shipping through
their email newsletters that don’t always show up on deal and
coupon sites.
Then there are the places with niche items that rarely go on
sale (like Apple products). Even if the product still stays at
normal price during Black Friday, some vendors will at least
provide a gift with purchase.
Note: If inbox clutter is a concern, you can use either a filter
or a junk email address to collect all the email in one spot. You
usually don’t need to use the same email address at checkout for
the code to work.
Keep an eye out for
bundle deals
Micro Center often has CPU/motherboard bundle discounts. When
combined with their insanely low in-store prices during Black
Friday, you can save some serious cash.
Shopping for PC parts? Pay attention to the retailers that favor
bundle and combo deals. That’s typically Newegg and Micro Center,
but on occasion other stores offer them as well.
You can save quite a bit this way—for example, Micro Center
often offers a combo discount for buying a CPU and a motherboard at
the same time. That’s in addition to already-reduced prices on both
components.
(You can see how we made the most of these deals in our Cheapest
Black Friday PC Build articles from 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016.)
Where to find
good Black Friday tech deals
Curious to know which stores we frequent the most? These are the
places we make our own personal purchases at:
We also shop directly on the manufacturers’ websites as well: Dell, Microsoft, HP, Apple, Google, etc.
(*We only buy from established retailers with eBay
storefronts, like Adorama and Best
Buy)
How to get
free shipping during Black Friday
Inpast years, several retailers (including Best Buy) tried to get an
edge on the competition by making next-day shipping free on many
items.
Over the last few years, free shipping has become more of a
given—and before the pandemic, next-day and 2-day shipping were
even dangled as an incentive. While free expedited shipping isn’t
likely in 2021, we still expect to see free standard shipping and
free curbside pick-up for purchases made at major retailers (as
applicable). We recommend signing up for newsletters now, so that
you’ll get notified of any free shipping promotions between now and
the end of December. You can unsubscribe after you’re done with
your shopping.
How to return Black
Friday purchases
Return policies vary across stores, but most U.S. retailers
extend their windows for returns and exchanges for items purchased
in November and most of December. Be sure to read the return policy
for each site you shop at. One particularly novel promotion last
year was Newegg’s
price-match guarantee: If you purchased an eligible item
between November 1 through November 22 and it dropped in price on
or before November 30, you were automatically refunded the
difference.
Also, before making a purchase, check to see if it’s easy to
return the item and if it will cost you anything (like a restocking
fee or shipping). If you’re not careful, you could lose money on
the purchase should you end up not needing it.
Our picks for Black
Friday deals
We’ll have several curated lists for Black Friday tech deals,
which we’ll release as the deals reach critical mass. (We’ll add
the links below as they go live.) You can expect to see our picks
for the best early deals first. Here’s to hoping for a year of
decent bargains.
This story, “Black Friday 2021: How to get the best prices on tech, and where to shop” was originally published by
