Black Friday & Cyber Monday Discussion Archive

Anyone else notice that deals, are absolute trash?

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  • Nov 27th, 2021 11:34 am
Deal Addict
User avatar
Feb 12, 2006
1131 posts
927 upvotes

Anyone else notice that deals, are absolute trash?

I’ve found nothing of interest in purchasing from any of the retailers - most pricing seems to have stayed the same or discounted maybe 10-15% max.

For example, I bought a Fitbit Versa 3, almost 3 weeks ago for $199.95 from Amazon. They have it labelled as a “Black Friday” deal for the same price at $199.95????
41 replies
Deal Addict
Dec 10, 2017
3798 posts
4014 upvotes
Toronto
Retailers hardly have product to begin with.

you think they want to mark down the in demand items this year?

itll all sell anyway.
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Deal Addict
User avatar
Oct 9, 2010
3149 posts
1334 upvotes
Windsor
desolatioN wrote: I’ve found nothing of interest in purchasing from any of the retailers - most pricing seems to have stayed the same or discounted maybe 10-15% max.

For example, I bought a Fitbit Versa 3, almost 3 weeks ago for $199.95 from Amazon. They have it labelled as a “Black Friday” deal for the same price at $199.95????
This has been the case for a very long time, probably since the beginning of BF. Deals are deals. Maybe something goes for a few more % off BF, but they generally are the normal deals that always are around.
One who is offended by truth, has no place among those who seek wisdom.
Member
Nov 30, 2005
482 posts
349 upvotes
North York
Yup fugues it would be garbage this year due to low inventory and high demands.. with global supply chain issue and no inventory to clear out, why would retailer heavily discount stuff? Although the ice wine deal at $99 a case is a steal
Deal Expert
Jun 30, 2006
21133 posts
9788 upvotes
Toronto
Inflation, supply chain issues, etc. I didn't expect any good deals.
Newbie
Jul 13, 2017
37 posts
15 upvotes
On the other hand, they still need to sell stuff and I’m not buying at retail price, as many others. So, something has to give. I would think they make a lot of cash inflow on bf and bd. Good luck with that without real deals.
That means more deals in January. Lol
Deal Expert
Aug 26, 2001
18145 posts
1741 upvotes
Mississauga, ON
The best deal of this month - bar none - is the Galaxy Watch4. We're basically getting it at BELOW COST, if you include the $50 Google Play credit and the fact that you can double dip the "trade in value" without any legal repercussions (since it's explicitly allowed by Samsung's T&C, so you can't be considered "scamming them").
Sr. Member
Jan 12, 2017
626 posts
239 upvotes
CBC clip suggested that retailers are worried they may have empty shelves. Their solution is to keep prices at the top end and my solution is to keep my wallet in my pocket. I suspect this coincides with China politics and not much about off-loading goods or chip shortages, given recent announcements regarding new mega plants in Texas etc.
Banned
Jul 16, 2018
43 posts
13 upvotes
Pretty much. There's either a very little discount or no discount at all. Unless the item's running out. Like buying last year's TV or mobile phone.
Deal Addict
Jan 25, 2008
2945 posts
3014 upvotes
Montréal
I have almost never found BF to actually be great deals. It used to be then it just became another marketing hype. Imo best deals are not well marketed; they sell themselves.
Deal Addict
Dec 27, 2007
4867 posts
2067 upvotes
Edmonton
BF died many years ago. Actually it died in the boxing day era....
Surprised people still complaining.

Why not just go on with your day and treat it like a normal Friday.
warming up the earth 1 gas fill-up at a time...
You only live once, get a v8
Deal Addict
Nov 12, 2006
3109 posts
2309 upvotes
London
krn905 wrote: Retailers hardly have product to begin with.

you think they want to mark down the in demand items this year?

itll all sell anyway.
The concept of sales is to create an incentive to purchase.
Sales are really for the seller, not the purchaser.

For some reason people now have an expectation.
If the products will sell anyways, why is there a reason to drop the price?
tmkf_patryk wrote: BF died many years ago. Actually it died in the boxing day era....
Surprised people still complaining.

Why not just go on with your day and treat it like a normal Friday.
BF wasn't even born that many years ago (Canada)
What younger consumers see is only a blip in our retail history.
Traditionally Boxing Day was our sales.
My impression on BF was that it was motivated by cross border shopping when our dollar was close to par.
Deal Expert
User avatar
Jan 9, 2011
19735 posts
28623 upvotes
Vancouver
I'm looking for a cheap carrier plan. No supply chain issues with that. I don't need a new phone, I don't need a whole bunch of extra GB of data to fool me into thinking I'm getting a good deal with the every day high prices. Where are the $15-$20/month plans that come with unlimited talk/text and like 1-2 GB of data, that residents of any other country on earth can get? I'm currently getting that with Freedom for $19, set to rise to $24 in two weeks. I managed to get them to extend the $19/month for that for another 4 months. But this is Freedom.

Why can't any other carrier give us something like this? Instead they keep the prices high and give us more and more data to make us think we are getting a deal.
Sr. Member
May 15, 2019
656 posts
760 upvotes
GWN
A wise fellow hockey parent told me a few years ago on Black Friday at a hockey tournament in the U.S.

I had asked him if his family was going shopping.

He took a deep breath and then said to me "Buddy (name was changed for this story), take a look at your house.... How much more stuff do you really need?"

He had never been to my house but he was absolutely correct and I thank him every BF since....
Deal Addict
Dec 24, 2008
4249 posts
1672 upvotes
Belle River
SnowyDumpling wrote: A wise fellow hockey parent told me a few years ago on Black Friday at a hockey tournament in the U.S.

I had asked him if his family was going shopping.

He took a deep breath and then said to me "Buddy (name was changed for this story), take a look at your house.... How much more stuff do you really need?"

He had never been to my house but he was absolutely correct and I thank him every BF since....
True but let's be honest, RFD is the opposite of that :). Often the deals don't even need to be good, I call it Red Flag Purchase Justification.

mix1home wrote: On the other hand, they still need to sell stuff and I’m not buying at retail price, as many others. So, something has to give. I would think they make a lot of cash inflow on bf and bd. Good luck with that without real deals.
That means more deals in January. Lol
But what about the masses of non-RFD types? They probably buy lots during sales like these. I think we all know that from what we see with our non-RFD type friends right? My friends all like to save money of course, but they are not really willing to wait or put much effort into finding that great deal.

And then you have just plain clueless types, I saw an elderly lady at Walmart the other day paying full $80 for Red Dead PS4. Just now I punched it into Google, second result was Amazon $50, third was Best Buy $20, then I checked Walmart's own website where 3rd parties have it for less.

I guess we'll get the sales figures on this Black Friday in a week or so and see if it really mattered.
Deal Addict
Jan 10, 2009
2596 posts
1987 upvotes
Boom and Bust Calgar…
The mobile phone plans were good this year. I'll take that as a win.

Other than that I have no real need of additional material goods. I bought a spice grinder, I guess that counts.
Deal Addict
User avatar
May 18, 2002
4598 posts
1658 upvotes
Brampton
I think we should have dedicated posts for price errors or discount/coupon stacking.
Any kind of advertised "deals" from retailers are meh,
it only warrants posting when something sneaks by them IMO. There may be an exception for Amazon dynamic pricing, but even those have fallen off lately.
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Member
Dec 16, 2017
292 posts
859 upvotes
ottawa
Honestly, I think this is the worst BF ever. And I think in many cases not only were there no sales, they actually hiked up the prices on products (I was goign to pay full price on one product, did a pricing history search and it was 30% cheaper just two days ago haha). I think the logic is they know people have put aside money and want to shop/spend on BF... but, so long as the competition isn't selling for less, you can get away with actually increasing your price and people will buy because they are tired of waiting for a sale.

My guess is we're going to see BF sales in a week or two after BF hehe.

All I know is I loaded my amazon wishlist up and unless you give me a f'ing sale you ain't getting my money :)
Deal Addict
Jul 30, 2001
3892 posts
3909 upvotes
GTA
I know all of us here are deal hunters, but have you not been to the malls lately?

They are packed and people are buying plenty. The fact that you are holding off on purchases is irrelevant -- what you aren't buying, someone else is. And stores don't have a ton of product to begin with, so why mark it down? It will eventually sell anyway.

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