A pretty well known and common tactic is for companies to jack up prices in the weeks before black Friday, then put stuff on sale. For example, on Amazon this morning I saw Bose headphones for $109, with the original price marked as $299 for a savings of 63%. Only, if you check the Honey price history, you can see that prior to November 9th, they had been priced at $179-205. On November 9th, the price was jacked up to $299 and stayed there until the "cyber monday sales". It's still a deal, but, not nearly the deal that's being advertised.
Last year, I had purchased a palm sander for $39.99 in August. That exact same sander (make, model, style, color, everything identical) was "on sale" for $44.99 on Cyber Monday with the original price shown as $59.99. I was looking to buy the same one for my dad for Christmas, so I waited until December 15th and sure enough, the price was back down to $39.99. Had I not checked price history, I would have spent $15 more and thought that I was getting a good deal by saving $15.
So, be sure you know what the normal price for an item is before purchasing it "on sale" this week. The easiest way to do this IMO is with one of the web browser extensions that searches price history. I personally use Honey, but I'm sure there are tons of other options out there.
November 26, 2018 at 10:23AM
