Tips for Scoring the Best Online Black Friday Deals
Black Friday deals will be rolling up here before we know it and it’s time to start prepping for some major online savings! If you are anything like me, you might be preparing to spend Thanksgiving Eve sitting in your pajamas and pulling out your laptop in search of deals to check-off the Christmas gift list!
Do you remember years ago, when Black Friday felt like a madhouse of sleep-deprived people trampling all over each other for a $20 tv? Ugh. I do and after a few years of doing this, I’ve completely switched to online shopping! {2020 add-in: online shopping is a safe way to shop this year!}
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Every year businesses reward online shoppers with plenty of discounted deals, free shipping, and specific online shopping privileges. Many stores even opt to start Black Friday shopping early for online shopping. I’ve noticed Thursday (of Thanksgiving) is the best days to get the best deals, stores usually start their online deals around noon (12:00 pm).
Grab your credit card and coffee – Black Friday deals are coming your way!
Save the most with these online shopping tips:
- Scan Black Friday store ads ahead of time to know where to shop for the items you want! These are sometimes released as early as November 1st.
- Sign up early for deal alerts, you can create and manage your own deal alerts.
- Create a shopping budget and stick to it. It’s very easy to detour from your budget when deals and constantly popping up online. Know your limits before you start shopping and evaluate the wants versus the needs.
- Check the best deal times. The best online deals will likely appear on Thanksgiving Day and during the Cyber Monday sale.
- Avoid paying shipping fees. Most stores will be promoting free shipping so opt for these options!
- Know store return policies and fees in advance. Some stores will charge a re-stocking fee for online returns, avoid purchasing items that will require this.
- Use your rewards cards! For example, some stores offer rewards cards with rebates for purchases and most retailers now have rewards programs for coupons and discounts.
- Use a rebates program for your online purchases. There are programs out there that offer rebates on your purchases if you use their app to access participating stores online. Last year, I made over $30 doing this just on online purchases during the Black Friday weekend.
- Bookmarket store pages ahead of time. Since you’ve already done the research, go ahead and make a shopping bookmark for the stores that have the online sales you want to shop. This will make it much easier to access through sites when the sales start.
- Refresh, refresh, refresh, and check-out! Hot items go out of stock fast, websites slow down due to high traffic, and items you thought you added to your cart suddenly go missing – it happens. Which is why it’s important to refresh your page often and checkout fast. I would even advise purchasing each item individually if free shipping is available, rather than taking the time to add all items to your cart with browsing and then checking out.
- Stock the cart ahead of time. It doesn’t hurt to go ahead and add the items you want to your online store “cart” ahead of time (under your account) so that you can immediately check-out when the item goes on sale.
- Coupons make a difference! Make a list of promo codes that are valid during Black Friday, check your email for exclusive coupons, and stack coupons in stores that allow it. For example, a store may offer a coupon for $5 off a certain amount and also allow you to combine a 15% off coupon of theirs in the same order.
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