Is this a Friday lie?

[FoxEye]

It's good practice to distrust anyone who's trying to sell you something. No exceptions

This is why sites such as camelcamelcamel exist. The price now is important, but not the whole story. You really need to know the price history of an item to be sure you're actually getting a "bargain".

 

[Rroff]

Majority of sales are a con, very rarely do you get an amazing deal that differs from sales prior or after.

Currys are terrible for inflating the original sales price and will constantly change the amount "saved" by comparing to different periods of the products price history (if you look at the ticket it will say between 2 dates). Amazon are also very sneaky with the percentage saved as they base it on the RRP not the previous item price, that's why extensions like keepa price checker and the camelizer are very handy to check the actual price history.

I'd say most of the big savings I've had have come from retailers messing up but still honoring the price mistake or discount codes stacking which probably shouldn't have. Always feels nice when you seem to get one up on the big retailers.

On balance I've done pretty well from Black Fridays - 2013 I did a completely new PC build and saved over £300 compared to the prices I'd seen for months before, some of the ones in between have been a bit pathetic but seen some good deals this year.

Quite a few things though that I've been watching have crept up in price by about 30% over the last few months and then on sale for like 35% off !!! for Black Friday - especially one pair of trainers I could just see it coming when the price started going up a few weeks back.

 

[Kol]

I use camelcamelcamel on items I want to buy. I pop it in, it show's me the average/highest/lowest price, I set my watched price at what I'm happy to pay if I'm not in a rush. Did that with a few items before and forgot about Black Friday. I wake up, they were lower than they'd been and my expected price so I bought.

 

[SPG]

Legislation is required, all this rrp, sales is now just tosh.

 

[FoxEye]

Legislation is required, all this rrp, sales is now just tosh.

There is legislation AFAIK, it's just woefully inadequate.

I do worry how many people I know who see "Sale" and assume "bargain". In some ways I envy them - every time I get my wallet out I almost black out from the pain

 

[SPG]

Yes the legislation now is bad, it was bad from day 1

 

[stopper]

Is this black Friday event a con or a hoax?

Yes. yes it is.

 

[MooMoo444]

Black Friday preys on the gullible. Keep track of historical pricing and don't fall for "SUPER SAVINGS!!"

 

[MikeTheNative]

I'm pretty sure that 24th of November 2017 was a real day, need to look into it more though to confirm.

 

[Diddums]

It's good practice to distrust anyone who's trying to sell you something. No exceptions

This. Never buy anything that's offered and always research stuff you want very thoroughly. 99% of the time you can get it cheaper elsewhere and if you're buying on a whim, you don't need it.

Exceptions include stuff like entertainment and stuff for the missus (flowers and dinners and stuffs).

 

[albert]

My uncle works for a well known kitchen/bathroom company in the North East. He tells me they always raise their prices in December and then lower them back to what they were for the January sales. I'd imagine loads of companies do the same thing for these Black Friday sales.