Here in Europe they're forced to show the lowest price of the last 30 days and I was looking at some games in GoG and for several interesting games their Black Friday "discounted" price is €15 whilst the lowest price in the last 30 days is €10.
So the Black Friday "discount" is in fact 50% more expensive than the previous time that game had a "discount" which happenned not even that long ago.
That's regionally specific then, because they sure as hell don't do that where i live (EU member). They have to compare with non-sale price within a month or something, so it's complete bullshit here because they artificially inflate prices prior to black Friday "sales".
But definitely double check SKUs. A lot of Black Friday products are more cheaply made than their usual counterparts, even if they outwardly seem like the same product.
I used to work at Best Buy in the Video department. We got all new products shipped in just for Black Friday. One year we got these $40 VCRs (I realize I'm dating myself here) that we must have sold a billion of. Within the week, we had so many returns that we didn't have any place to put them.
You gotta track stuff you want to buy ahead of the pre-sale price hikes. Depending on where you live, what you want to buy and how much money you make that might be too much time and energy so checking price history sites (like camelcamelcamel for amazon) when they're available also works in a pinch.
For like the first ten of them and you have to get to the store 6 hours before it opens and then fight gladiator matches with all the other crazy people to be at the cash register first. No thanks, man!
I went clothes shopping in the US today and saved 496 dollars with all the coupons and sales, and got mountains of stuff. I always do it that way, but I shop the day after Black Friday and the deals are still the same. US department stores on holiday long weekends are the best deal ever, I save money all year and go for a great big shop.
Yeah, always gotta check price history. Especially on Aliexpress.
Was looking at buying a particular retro game emulator handheld. Black friday pricing was the same as non-black-friday pricing, but it was "discounted" from $300, which it has never actually been sold at. Still bit the bullet and bought it because it did end up decently cheaper using one of their "spend $x and get $y off" coupons.
Keppa is a bit better imo. A lot of price history goes back pre covid (not like it matters I just find it interesting to see), camelcamelcamel doesn't. IIRC had something to do with Amazon making them
In the UK, Which (a consumer group) did a study. I think 90% of products were cheaper or same price at other parts of the year.
The only thing cheaper is usually the shit that no one wants that they cannot shift, or those 5 TVs at the start of the day that make people believe there are good deals available.
I’ve learned my lesson. I bought a graphics card and a monitor a few weeks ago. They were the kinds of desirable purchases that were never going to get discounted on Black Friday.
Deals are there, many are not worth the wait and the real (good) deals are often less desireable items.
At least from what i've seen myself.
But i always hope the more expensive stuff gets a discount so i can get something better than what i would've bought otherwise.
Right now there are a couple 4080 super's discounted but it's only like €80 difference for a model i would only buy if the difference was larger, so i almost ended up buying a non discounted 4080 super model.
There's really no point arguing with someone who thinks in memes, and definitely not with someone who leads with "Capitalism is cancer." But business does have a "grow or die" philosophy, which could be what the person means by misapplying the term "infinite". The mainstream business world knows literally infinite growth isn't possible - although many people in business don't see or acknowledge specific limits, or think they're so far away they can be treated as infinite right now.
But srsly there are best times of the year to buy a lot of things. For example, Christmas decorations are marked way down right after Christmas, and TVs are discounted right before the Super Bowl. Month-by-month guide