Black Friday Deals 2008 - Your Game Plan

Raikus — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:41:00 GMT

It's that wonderful time of year again. The weather is cooling, people are getting into the giving mood and businesses are trying to turn their numbers from red to black. That means that it's the season for great deals! I've been a Black Friday fan for about a decade now. I buy about 70% of my electronics, gifts and upgrades during the "Day After Thanksgiving" sales. So if I can divulge a bit of my knowledge to help some other people get great deals (as long as you're not getting in line before me) I'll be happy to do so.

Preparation. The first step, as it usually goes, is preparation. Don't wait to pick up the Thanksgiving Day paper to learn what deals are out there -- do it now. There are some great sites out there for Black Friday Deals. My personal favorites are www.keepcash.com and www.theblackfriday.com. These sites are dedicated to getting a hold of the Black Friday deals before their published and letting you know what they are. Do your research here and it will pay off in time and dollars in the future. Make a list of what items you're looking for and begin comparing. Remember that it's not important to just pay attention to the item and the price, be aware of which stores have the most products you're looking for. Because the next step is...

Planning. I'm not going to give you some metaphor for Black Friday shopping/shoppers but if I were it would most likely involve war, blood and mass casualties. Black Friday is serious business. Even if you don't think so, there are thousands of middle aged housewives who live for this day and God forbid you get between them and their prized item. At best you'll lose a finger at worst... well, rest in peace Jimmy. Planning is essential in guaranteeing that you get the most of what you're wanting in the quickest time and with the least loss of life. Identify the opening times for the stores on your list. Most likely you'll have 2 or 3 tiers of opening times. Wal-Mart traditionally opens at the insane time of 4AM for their Black Friday. Best Buy and Target probably won't be open until 6AM. If you want one of the "door buster" deals then you'll want to get in line before the store opening. However, as fun as it is to camp on bare concrete and maybe see you're cold, sniveling face on the mid-day news, I've always fancied showing up after the doors have opened. Unless you're at the head of the line (re: you got there at 9PM Thanksgiving night) the chances of you getting the item are roughly the same as you showing up after they open. There's a handy formula for figuring out what time to show up to a store. It's (desire for product) divided by (value of sleep) times (savings on product) minus (public appeal of product) equals (time to show up at store). In layman's, don't show up at 10AM and expect to get that 50" plasma for $700.

Revision. No matter how good the plan that you've put together is, there will always be factors that change it. Maybe the Circuit City you went to is out of their Western Digital 1 TB external hard drives. Perhaps Wal-Mart ran out of SD chips for a dollar. Maybe apes have taken over the local Best Buy. Whatever the situation you're going to have to roll with the punches. Have a backup plan. If there are similar products at multiple stores, make sure you take note of them. If the first store doesn't have them, know which store has the next better deal. This may even change your store-hopping order. Just be prepared because it most likely will happen.

Time. Always be aware of your time. Chances are the deals will be gone by 11AM. That gives you about 5 hours of time to run around and scoop up what you can. Recently, many stores have been doing "early bird" internet-only deals. Last year, Circuit City had some really fabulous deals. Most were on par or slightly more than the instore deals. Keep an eye out for these. Some may even be available Thanksgiving Day. Cross everything off your list online that you can and it will save you hours of time and aggrovation.

Here is a compilation list of the best Black Friday Deals out there for 2008. Take a look!

The Wastebucket : hdtv, black friday deals, friday

Black Friday Deals 2008 - Your Game Plan