From Wirecutter: Don't Get Swindled on Black Friday
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Hey, it's mind today, as you know, is black friday, a day that looms oddly large in my life. For years, I was this newspapers retail reporter, and so every friday after thanksgiving, I will wake up at four in the morning, print circulars s in my hand, and dash from store to store, reporting on the latest storbuk deals, and the blue yed shoppers literally climbing over each other in order to buy them.

And what I came to understand, and ultimately to appreciate, is that black friday is this strange, enduring, wild and quince Sally american holiday. And today we are celebrating IT with a special episode from our colleagues over at wire cutter, who started their own podcast earlier this year. You probably know wire cutter product reviews, gift guides, they're very good what they do. And they put together a comprehensive guide to black friday that we're now going to share with you. So without further do, here is today's special black friday episode from larger.

From the new york times you're listings to the wire cutters show i'm Christian .

sir closet i'm .

Carry blackwell and i'm rosy gerin and today is a big day for wire cutter is black credit. This year, tens of millions of people are expected to go online or on foot to shop for black friday deals. And as is the case every year, people are going to spend money. A lot of IT. This year, the national retail federation is projecting over nine hundred billion dollars will have been spent in november and december alone.

These days is black friday has come to refer to an almost entire week of deals today through cyber monday. And while it's the single biggest shopping weekend of the year, it's also a day that's become increasingly confusing for shoppers. More days of advertising sales, bigger pile of things to sit through, plus retailers have gotten really good at the game to the point where much of what looks like a deal that's too good to be true actually is too good to be true.

So every year, our entire newsroom, about a hundred journalists across dozens of beds, school, is the internet to find true bargains. And every year there's one person whose job that is oversee all of this. And he's here with us today, senior deals editor Nathan burgh.

Hi everyone.

Hi, thank you. So anything can you tell us how deal sleeping works and what you get up to on back friday?

absolutely. During black friday anti on monday, my team is going through all of the potential deals that are flagged by our expert editorial staff. Um we are also searching organically on the world. We're checking Priceline ds that we've set in order to identify Price drops. And so really, it's about going through the thousands upon thousands of sales that we see out there, vetting those sales and then identifying the ones that are actually real Price drops.

okay. So can you start by telling us exactly how many products you've reviewed this year?

But we don't know quite yet because we're recording prior to a black friday coming to a clothes, uh, but I can tell you that last year, we reviewed one hundred forty seven thousand seven hundred twelve potential deals, and it's never failed to grow year over year. So IT, it'll probably be a little more than that this year.

Wow, that is so many products, Nathan. And of those, how many did we actually recommend?

Ultimately, we only recommended thirteen hundred and forty four, and that's about one percent, uh, which is pretty consistent in terms of the percentage that we identify the real deals over the years.

That is wide, broad strokes. What are you actually looking for? How do something make the cut?

IT has to be a substantial discount, a meaningful discount on, of course, equality product. Let me give you an example, the U E wanderoo for that's why cut is top portable blue speaker right now was on sale. I don't know if you hear my air quotes there, but it's on sale very regularly at eighty.

But we've observed the Price fall seventy five dollars on a few occasions. It's been as lowest seventy dollars on one occasion. And since products in the blue speaker category attend to gradually fAllen Price from the time that they are released, we think a reasonable target for the speaker right now is seventy to seventy five dollars. We're looking for a round about the lowest Price we've ever seen. Eighty dollars, which is consistently framed as a sale by retailers, is not a real discount for .

more that is so tRicky. So you're actually when you're looking for the deals that you're gona feature on our deals page, you're actually looking for deals that are significantly lower than the lowest Prices you've seen all year, right?

Yes, typically, we look for something that either matches or Better that low as Price we've seen all year. And on black friday, you'll see a lot of retailers offer what appears to be the best Price of the year, thirty to forty percent, but that's not actually true. Often, they're overstating the full Price because they inflate the list Price.

So it's actually usually a smaller percent than that, more like ten to fifteen percent of the regular three Price. And what are you looking for something that even Better than that, ten to fifteen percent in order to make our cut? Really, it's gona vary from product categories, product category.

So for something like a macbook air, which can retail for over a thousand dollars, depending on the configuration, a ten percent discount can be really impacted. But for something under one hundred dollars, uh, we prefer much a larger discount percent vice, because we want the amount save to be meaningful. And ultimately, that if you go through the feels that we post during a bike friday, cyber monday this entire a week, the average percent of we generally settle on is around twenty to twenty five percent. Um it's a far cry from the massive discount percentages that what every tailors will claim they're giving you, but it's really a realistic percentage of that is truly it's some of the Better pricing in a year. And and we find that, that's consistent across product category during blind.

Are there any new categories you're recommending this year?

yes. So where could I started recommend a lot more in the way of a perl and cosmetics and gifts. You'll probably see more deals highlighted on drugs or cosmetics, makeup and other beauty items from alter and Sophia this holiday season.

Anything has this job gotten easier or harder over the years?

Unfortunate it's gotten harder. There are more retiro st involved than ever before in these big events. And the shopping experience is honestly moral ae than ever before.

And so we're trying to sort of puncher the hyper, trying to identify the real stuff. And the sales have also gotten the longer, which makes for some confusing dynamics for per shoppers. We saw early bike friday sales start around the turn of the month betwen october, no member.

And so really at that point is about identifying what you should wait until back friday to purchase because a lot of retailers were count are new to sort of not take a dvantage of race protection policies that are in place, even if you got a sale november first and there's a Price protection policy in place that would allow you to get refunded. They sort of count on you not taking advantage that not going back in store and getting refunded the difference when the Price drops another ten percent on black riding. So when that dynamic exists, IT puts the honest back on the shopper to take action to get that difference refunded and in a sense of kind of Operates like a rebate where shoppers of you know, they may take advantage of IT, but they often don't. In that sense, retailers are potentially ensuring that they're able to pad the bottom .

mine little bit. I imagine also the job has gotten harder because there are these other retailer, cotton quote, holiday. Is that pop up throughout the year?

Yeah, at this point, there are three different amazon prime events that pop up throughout the year. I supposed to the one when I when I started our cutter and then during those windows were seeing sales from other major retailers ers like best buy, like targets, walmart. And of course, the smaller retailers and direct consumer retailers get in on the act at various pots throughout the year as well, especially during the black friday in ybor monday window.

okay. So now let's get into why it's gotten so hard to find an actually good deal.

So there are three main reasons. And the first one is related to Price and how is presented. And that's the M S.

R P. Probably seen that aviation and stands for manufacturer suggested retail Price. So basically, in a nutshell, the M S R P is the term use for Prices suggested by manufacturer for retailers.

Those retailers pay wholesale Prices and then they mark the Price up to a Price of they're choosy in the modern day, M S. R. P is often ignored by retailers in favor of their own pricing approach.

So you'll see this Prices that are totally divorced from emser. I I will say it's often used as a benchmark to set pricing or to give the perception of a discount. And we've all heard those ads from car dealers out their Price versus M S R P. More often than not, it's really just another form of discount manipulation.

So how does your team work around this to get to the true discount?

So we use something called street Price, and that's a term we use for what we perceive the everyday Price of a given product to be. If there are a lot of Price wings, we tend to use an average for the street Price. So something that's forty one week and then fifty and eggs and then back to forty would have a street Price of forty five. Our goal is to just identify what a reader would pay on a Normal basis without the sort of Price manipulation that you might see in making the best Price or the full Price seem like more than IT is. And earlier.

you said that there are three main reasons why it's so hard to find a good deal. What's the second reason is so hard to design a true bargain from a fake one.

So this one is another acronym largely on the manufacturers and it's called map pricing, uh, which stands for minimum advertised Price. So in order for a retailer to Carry a manufacturers product, they will often broke an agreement where the retailer cannot openly advertiser Price that is a lower than a Price that is pretty terminated by the manufacturer. Retailers have ways to get around that.

So you'll see things like on page coupons when you go to a product listing or verbiage that indicates that the sale Price will reflect only when you add something to cart. What that creates is a situation where IT actually makes IT harder for people that are shopping online to identify something that's on sale readily. And summer retailers might want to advertise and give you a Better Price, but they can't.

And so in a sense, it's a little anti competitive because of this incentivises them in terms of offering a Price so good, it'll set the market and get you as a shopper through the door because you have to be there on side already to see IT. And so if you can't see IT before you're there, there's really no reason for them to try to push to provide this rock button Price. This makes determining the Price, the everyday Price of our product, difficult and sometimes impossible from a shopping search. So customers don't have ready access to information about pricing when they are going around shopping on the internet casually.

so they cannot openly present a Price that's lower than a certain Price point. So how do they find what the lowest is that a manufacturer retailer is willing to present?

A lot of retailers out there will track other retailers pricing. And so there's there's a lot of amazon is probably the the best example of a company that is really algorithm ally tract. The pricing of other major retailers ers out there immediately matches that pricing and as a result, is trying to make itself the only game in town.

They will match a walmart Price of walmart drops surprise to a certain point. They will match best buy Price. If best buy drops its Price to a certain point. And so in that sense, retailers track one another, which sets the market. But IT does not drop over the map racing in the less they decide to take one of those extradition measures and have that on page coupon or have the Price that reflects in car.

Nathan, where do you see this kind of thing in its most nefarious form? Like how can you, as a non deals editor, spot these?

One of the things that you have to look out for is definitely that verbiage, that excess on our product listing page. And so while IT might take a little bit of additional effort, it's worth clicking through on the retail of your choice to see if the product listing has that coupon burbage or if there is verbiage on that product listing page that says sea pricing art or uh, deal Price for reflecting cart. And then you can go ahead and take the additional steps to ensure that, that Price is what you hoped that would be.

okay. So you really have to do your due diligence.

Then what's the third thing you really want to look out for?

Unfortunately, things that are cheap like you blow out T V and uh you know clear span items and so like that things that are cheap during back friday might actually be cheap as and cheaply made doing like friday if you want A T, V. It's a stereotype. But every year, we see the big discounts on those cheaper models.

Sometimes their brand names that you've never been heard of, and retailers will often show them side by side with with brand name models that are Better. And for the uninitiated like they have tend to look the same. Um there even models within the same line of television where some models are from a given brand are good and some models are specifically released around the holiday season or are released to be a model that can potentially be discounted to an incredibly low Price. But there are lower quality and not something that you have to bear in mind and be caught yourself in your shopping.

So given that you as a shopper, you might be seeing a page that has a photo of one model, but you might be actually buying something else is really important to do your homework and look for the features you want. Don't just trust the photo right?

One hundred percent. Especially you are looking at things like sales period als, uh, which are on the present during the season. We recommend that you click through that you actually we reviews that you look at specific model numbers and features to identify the P, B model or the model of any other electronic that works this way, uh, so that you're able to make sure that you get a quality item.

Can you explain what a sales periodical is?

Yeah, so lively. So for years and years, there were retailers like target and even walGreens or a costco would have like a physical booklet t and many some of them still do. That shows you the products that will be on sale is generally broken out by category.

And IT was sort of a free internet way to get people into brick mortar stores. Now those period, les, they were released in advance of an event like by riding. Sometimes those advertisements are meant to gets you there in the hopes that you'll stay there.

I kind of always thought that those sales period, les, were just meant to go directly into the recycling bin and not into my home.

That's what they do for the fire.

but you might find some good deals on there. So where look, all right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk with me and all about the types of products you're likely to find most heavily discounted today on black friday and throughout the weekend as well as some of the products you should probably avoid. You're listening to the wire cutters show new episodes drop every wednesday wherever you listen to podcasts will be right back.

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Welcome back to the wirecutters show in today's episode, we're breaking down black friday with wirecutters senior deals editor, Nathan bro. Nathan, before the break, you said your team post deals in every category. Wirecutters covers over forty categories of these, which are the ones that are most likely to have the best deals.

All the good thing is you'll fine pretty good deals on almost every product category. But historically, we ve found particularly good deals in two categories. One would be small casual planes and the other is electronics like TV laptops at a why is that .

to degree there is .

an element of unloading merchandise um especially with the electronics product category. Many of electronics like tablets, slap tops have phones. They get refresh pretty regularly on the early basis. So clearing old stock can become important caretakers and they're able to discount those items more substantially as the age that's slightly less the case with small kitchen pointings. But the margins on kitchen appliances are such that I think they can really afford to discount them by quite a bit during a black friday or cyber monday.

Nathan, I am a renter, so i'm not really looking to buy appliances right now. What else is good to buy on black friday?

Black rating is unexpectedly ly a great time to get deals on regular stuff, those everyday essentials IT might be strange to see an amazing deal and you know, uh, boys, for your dog alongside s on a macbook. But IT does happen. I love black .

friday for the regular stuff. I actually, when you're boat, I don't know something like two hundred and forty pounds of kit litter because IT was six forty pound bags, a cute letter, and I was seven dollars off each and I was like, i'm gna snapp these up so yes, it's a great time to buy things like, you know, just batteries, Kitty litter, you know, the Normal stuff. Are there any categories specifically to avoid like categories that just never have a good deal?

So here, somebody who is always looking for the latest, greatest tech by friday might not be great for you in that respect. Laptops with in four ships, uh, the newest iphone stuff like that. They may see small introduction tory discounts, but most of time they don't see discounts that we're going to see later as we get farther away from those released states.

The other product categories that don't see discounts on bike friday itself are from brands or retailers that do not participate the amount and those do exist. They are usually outdoor retailers. Um we found so ri does not have black friday sales category. Ian also does not participate black riding, but they also have annual events of their own like our eyes anniversary sale that will allow you to get the best deals of the year on their stuff.

So any and another part of doing your homework as someone who shopping for a deal is to understand the model that you're looking for, the model number specifically and to try to find that model when you're doing your shopping, right?

Yes, I was just doing this yesterday, in fact, with one of our welf maker pics. Basically, what I do and what I would recommend the choppers do is I match the exact model number from the review that you are looking add or from the add that you're looking add against the model number that you see the product listing. And that's a way to guarantee that you're getting exactly what you wanted. And as a result, you're getting the features that you wanted and you're getting the quality of product that you wanted because you've mashed up those model numbers to ensure that is the exact same thing.

I've heard that browser extensions can help you find a Better deal. Can you tell us about brother extensions? What are they do? They work, and if so, how and how? Well.

so the extensions to the right of your search bar, there is a little icon. As you travel around the internet, IT basically registers what you're looking at. It's like an APP that accompanies you are browsing online.

You may have seen these coupon based extensions, and the biggest ones are honey and capital one. More or less, the way those work is when you take an item to cart, they will provide either internally sourced or crowd source suggestions for coupon codes. You can use a that worked previously.

Those extensions will work and we use them to identify potential coupon codes that we can surpass for our reader. They're free, but just be aware of that. Nothing is really free on the internet. really. What they're doing is there tracking your browser information as many extensions do. The other thing that these extensions do is when you utilize them and when you click on them in order to get the additional tracking information or in order to get to coupon, they will ultimately collect the affiliate revenue associated with you purchasing that product. So they get a little percentage of what you spent on the product that you ultimately purchased if you use the extensions.

We're going to take a quick break. And on the other side, the number one thing to avoid when you're looking to score deals and savings on black friday and throughout the weekend you're listening to the wirecutters show will be right back.

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Welcome back to the wirecutters show. Our guest today is wirecutters senior deals editor, neth and burrow. We said this episode, discussing all the different ways to find deals on your own, not just today and through the weekend, but throughout the year. Anything if there was one thing you would caution folks to avoid this weekend, what would that be?

Be careful getting stuck in the sort of google shopping cold sac. People think that they're doing comparison shopping when they enter something in to a google search. But in truth, it's not as broad a selection of options as they think IT is.

They have incentive to send you to retailers and provide you with information that may not serve you best. They'll show you the retailers they want you to see. They'll show you, as a result, the Prices that they want you to see.

So anything when you're speaking about the google called the sac you're talking about, you know, I went to buy a look dutch up in this black friday. I shouldn't just google look as I dutch up in and assume that what I see the top of that page, or what I see the first page of results is going to present me with places I can find the best deal on a dutch.

exactly, uh, just like a brick mode retailer, google. Now they are incentivized to sort of put things where you can see them the most. And so it's something that I caution shoppers about. You know, they need to know that there's more than just what you'll see from that initial page. We recommend doing some further digging.

Alright, Nathan. Before we wrap, we usually ask all our guests to tell us about the lasting they bought that they really loved. But since this isn't a typical episode, I want to go off script and ask if there's anything you're planning to buy today or this weekend with an epic black friday discount.

So one of the things that i'm looking for this weekend is an awesome deal on a turntable. I am looking in particular at one of our picks from a company called projects. I had a turn table that serve me well for many years, but i'm finally looking upgrade.

cool. Nathan seeks so much. Nathan barrow is wirecutters senior deals editor.

Thank you. Think you get back to work. Just couldn't have a great weekend. Hey, if you're new to the wirecutters show, we'd love to have you join us every wednesday wherever you like to listen a podcast gotten, follow us so you won't miss our new episodes.

Are normous things today to our colleagues at near times audio and at the daily special things to palash human. There is a Anderson ben cohen page cow wet and donate lifeline and ben freman you can check out wired cut coverage of black friday deals at N Y time. Stop calm flash wire cutter and of course, you can find and follow the wirecutters show on apple podcast spotify or again, wherever you like to listen new episodes drop every wednesday that's IT for us. I'm rosy garden. I'm Carry black .

well and i'm Christine close set.

The wire cutters show is executive produced by me, rosy gern, and produced by aagot's kill, editing by apogee kill, engineering support from madia zelo and nick pitman. Today's episode was mixed by dan power, original music by marian lizana alesia a youtube 点 power and Diana。 Here's what's coming up next week on the wire cutters show.

When you're thinking about these affordable gifts you want to be thinking about, would the person think this cost twenty five dollars? Or does that see me IT would cost a lot more than twenty five dollars to get something this great. That is a good sign. Thank you for listening.