Is Black Friday really the best time of year to find the greatest discounts on products? We want to know if you’ve bought a product on offer that you later regretted.
Black Friday has been a firm fixture in the UK shopping calendar for eight years now – it’s become so entrenched that some retailers have started running fortnight-long Black Friday deals.
Still, most of the anticipation and excitement is reserved for the day itself, which, in case you needed reminding, is tomorrow.
But with this infamous day of discounts almost upon us, our new research has exposed some of the ‘deals’ for what they really are.
Deal or no deal?
We tracked the prices of 94 popular home, tech and personal products from five major retailers that were on offer on Black Friday in 2017.
And what we found was surprising: 87% of these products were the same price or cheaper at other times of the year than their Black Friday price.
While some 46% of products were cheaper than their Black Friday price on at least one day during the six months afterwards.
Additionally, unique bargains were scarce – only 13% of the products we tracked were truly discounted on Black Friday, IE the same or a lower price wasn’t found on any other day.
Black Friday beliefs
Although Black Friday deals aren’t always advertised as the cheapest ever price, consumers have certain expectations about the shopping day.
When we surveyed Which? members, 64% said they would expect prices to be at their lowest during a sale than they had been in the previous six months. But as our research shows, this isn’t always the case.
Given consumers have such high expectations for Black Friday, surely retailers have something of a responsibility offer genuine deals on the day? What do you think?
Are you a big Black Friday fan? Or have you been previously swept up in the frenzy of it, only to later regret certain purchases? We’d love to hear your experiences.
Retailer reply
We offered the retailers mentioned a right of reply.
Amazon:
We offer many thousands of incredible deals around Black Friday representing millions of pounds of savings for our customers across a vast selection of products.’ An Argos spokesperson said: ‘During Black Friday our customers benefit from a huge range of deals on a wide range of products, all at the same time. This does not exclude these products from other promotions.
Currys PC World:
While our prices – like all retailers’ – can fluctuate throughout the year, we’re proud to offer our Price Promise across our entire range – and this covers the Black Friday trading period.
A John Lewis spokesperson said that prices are matched throughout the year as part of its Never Knowingly Undersold commitment, meaning that when high street competitors run promotions its prices are lowered to match, and that the Black Friday period is no different.
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