Black Friday 2012
 

Hi everybody,

Some years ago I visited US end of November and had the chance to buy some electronic devices in Bestbuy on BF. I got such good prices that I wanted to repeat the experience.

This year I booked a ticket to HNL, with the intention to get a laptop there. (apart from visiting such a nice island).

What I do not know if they have also sales on Black Friday for example in BestBuy? Are there good sales? the taxes are higher there as far as I understood but on Black Friday sales do not include taxes.

Any help is appreciated.
Many thanks.

Most major retailers have some sort of Black Friday deals, but these sales often aren't announced until a couple weeks prior (sometimes ad inserts are leaked earlier). So while it's easy to predict that stuff will be on sale, it may be tougher to know what things in particular. Also, supplies are often limited and rain checks aren't necessarily issued, so there are no guarantees.

Cyber Monday is the online equivalent of Black Friday and occurs on the first Monday after Thanksgiving.

Also, it's worth remembering that prices of merchandise sold in Alaska & Hawaii may be higher than in the mainland US because of higher shipping costs.

Personally, I use www.bfads.net as my primary source for BF/CM events.

dealnews also provides some good Black Friday/Cyber Monday coverage:
http://dealnews.com/black-friday/

OK, I was thiking that the prices will be higher. But at least there should be not tax right?

Wrong:(

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Travel to one of the fuvr states with n sales tax. Some of them may have local sales tax though. OR, AS, Montana, and DE are the ones I remember. DE had no local sales tax either when I lived their.

It just so happens, today is the 25 year history of "Black Monday"...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Monday_(1987)

Well in 2007 I was in SC and bought a camera with a 150 USD discount.
At least there are good discounts in that period.

This Wall Street Journal article points out that prices on Black Friday are on average higher than the rest of the year. This excludes "door buster" specials offered in limited quantities.

You are saying that I would do better buying in another period?

Next weekend will be in LAS. How does is compare? are there prices better? any ocasional discounts? I am searching for a regular laptop.

Thanks

That's why resources like SlickDeals are useful. The community combs through the BF ads and discuss what are the loss leaders, and which can be found for same/better prices at other times.

I would also recommend camelcamelcamel.com for price history analysis.

It depends on what kind of laptop you are looking for. If you're looking for a very basic laptop, then Black Friday sales are really difficult to beat. However, it is one of those items that people do wait in line all night for.

If you're looking for a computer with decent (or better) specs, you're better off combing the deals websites (like slickdeals.net) to see what's out there. Right now, both Dell and Lenovo have had some very good deals in their outlet website. I could've picked up a Dell Latitude with an i5 Ivy Bridge processor, 4GB RAM, DVD burner and 1600x900 14" screen for $650. Lenovo had similar specs for almost the same price.

What I am looking is ideally a DELL I5 with 8GB RAM, HD>750GB and maybe a 14" or 17" screen. I saw some very good deals on bestbuy some weeks ago. Actually I visit only Bestbuy when in US. Could have this DELL for around 650 USD.

If you're overly specific about the laptop you want, then black friday may not be for you. It's more "take what you get" because they offer very few models at the deep discounts and in very limited numbers.