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90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

bbc.com

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Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#191

Post by PennRobotics »

kisamoto wrote: post #104

I'm sure this surprises no-one who has ever waited for a Black Friday (deal) only to suspect/know that the price is no different than before. It feels especially this way in Europe where retailers have adopted "Black Friday week" or similar purely to encourage additional spending. There is a tool (in Switzerland) I use a lot. TopPreise ( http://toppreise.ch ) scrapes, aggregates and compares prices from retailers but…

These sites are great. Some device I'd like to buy is discounted 3%, and I can see that the manufacturer's old model steadily dropped in price between Christmas and summer. I know it's better to wait than to bite at the current, laughable discount.

In Germany, https://www.billiger.de/ https://www.idealo.de/ and https://geizhals.de/ are just three of the many sites that aggregate prices.

I know Idealo has a price history that goes back one year. The unfortunate parts: they only list price history for new items, and incorrectly listed discounts (refurb instead of new, different model/color, etc.) stay in a product's price history, so there are sometimes price valleys that should not exist.

It would be nice if you could see (on the price history chart) which site/seller had the lowest historical price, since there's more credibility in a listing from Media Markt (probably the largest electronics chain in DE) than from Ebay.

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#192

Post by dspillett »

noisy_boy wrote: post #116
beebeepka wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow. 5000 to just 100! Reminds me of that south park episode "These are genuine faux sapphire earrings. 14-carat gold, 86-carat faux sapphire. Faux is French. It's got an X in it, but you don't pronounce it. How do you like that for prestigious?"

You joke but I recently heard a term "original copy" going around in my wife's circle. Turns out, that term is to signify something that is a near-perfect copy of a designer item. These are not cheap either; they sell for at least 20x the price of a "non-original copy" i.e. inferior fake.

Some years ago a friend (who I've slipped out of contact with since) who was into fashion to the point it might be called an obsession, used the term “original copy” to specifically refer to side copies, made in the same factory as the actual original, likely by the same workers, off the record, with excess materials from the end of an official production run (or simply stolen, sorry “redirected”, materials). Sometimes items would have minor defects (maybe those were official originals that failed a QA inspection?), often there would be nothing detectable different from the “real thing” apart from maybe a missing care label or such.

Sounds like the term has become a bit more general, going by the interpretation you've experienced.

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#193

Post by CommanderData »

fasouto wrote: post #54
nitsuaeekcm wrote: post #48

For those who use Amazon and want cost perspective on particular items, Camelcamelcamel is a superpower ( https://camelcamelcamel.com/ ) I’m sure one day I’ll find out they make money in all sorts of sketchy ways, but in the mean time it’s a great free website, and I’m continually astounded to see how often retailers play around with the prices they post.

They do money by adding their affiliate code to the links. However the Amazon Affiliate TOS [0] say: (y) Unless otherwise agreed by Amazon, your Site must not have price tracking and/or price alerting functionality. I see many sites with this functionality. I don't know if they all got approved by Amazon or they are not enforcing this clause. [0] https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/operating/policies...

Just logged into remind everyone CamelCamelCamel shut down Europe sites during the initial Covid outbreak. https://mobile.twitter.com/camelcamelcamel/status/1242179105...

I remember reading price gouging from Amazon was revealed some months later. I wonder if they wanted to stop this being shown so blatantly.

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#194

Post by noisy_boy »

dspillett wrote: post #192
noisy_boy wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You joke but I recently heard a term "original copy" going around in my wife's circle. Turns out, that term is to signify something that is a near-perfect copy of a designer item. These are not cheap either; they sell for at least 20x the price of a "non-original copy" i.e. inferior fake.

Some years ago a friend (who I've slipped out of contact with since) who was into fashion to the point it might be called an obsession, used the term “original copy” to specifically refer to side copies, made in the same factory as the actual original, likely by the same workers, off the record, with excess materials from the end of an official production run (or simply stolen, sorry “redirected”, materials). Sometim…

Huh I never knew about this angle - thanks for sharing.

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#196

Post by usr1106 »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #140
ayngg wrote: post #46

It has been interesting watching the concept of Black Friday (and cyber monday) evolve over the past 20 or so years from being mostly an "American big box retailer dumping excess stock" thing to "oh boy its black Friday, time to go buy stuff!" thing. The entire event has basically been undeservingly co-opted by everyone looking to cash in on hype over an event that basically doesn't even resemble what made it a thing…

>Just like how for singles day in Asia, retailers shamelessly just jack prices up beforehand to make their sale prices look like discounts. This would be illegal in Denmark https://www.forbrugerombudsmanden.dk/hvad-gaelder/markedsfoe... English >If an item, for example, has cost DKK 1,000 throughout the year, and it is set up to DKK 1,500 for 6 weeks and then comes on “sale” for DKK 1,000 again, this is misleading, w…

Illegal in Finland, too. But it's rarely enforced by the authorities (they would have a lot of work to follow up every case) and as a consumer you don't have the right to request damages.

If you could demand the difference you "lost" by believing in their exaggerated discount the law would be useful.

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#197

Post by dghughes »

ayngg wrote: post #46

It has been interesting watching the concept of Black Friday (and cyber monday) evolve over the past 20 or so years from being mostly an "American big box retailer dumping excess stock" thing to "oh boy its black Friday, time to go buy stuff!" thing. The entire event has basically been undeservingly co-opted by everyone looking to cash in on hype over an event that basically doesn't even resemble what made it a thing…

I'm Canadian in 1999 I was in Scranton, Pa. for Thanksgiving and my friend said Black Friday tomorrow. I said what's that? She was shocked I didn't know about it. Back home it was unheard of since our Thanksgiving is in October. I didn't go to a store I headed home but now I wish I would have experienced it.

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#198

Post by unmole »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #108
ericmay wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s alright. After Black Friday loses influence you can do singles day and buy stuff from Alibaba instead shrug

I've seen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holi here in Germany. Don't know what to make of it. Wouldn't want to have colored powders having thrown at me.

> Wouldn't want to have colored powders having thrown at me.

How about drinking cannabis infused milkshakes instead? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhang

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#200

Post by jcims »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #140
ayngg wrote: post #46

It has been interesting watching the concept of Black Friday (and cyber monday) evolve over the past 20 or so years from being mostly an "American big box retailer dumping excess stock" thing to "oh boy its black Friday, time to go buy stuff!" thing. The entire event has basically been undeservingly co-opted by everyone looking to cash in on hype over an event that basically doesn't even resemble what made it a thing…

>Just like how for singles day in Asia, retailers shamelessly just jack prices up beforehand to make their sale prices look like discounts. This would be illegal in Denmark https://www.forbrugerombudsmanden.dk/hvad-gaelder/markedsfoe... English >If an item, for example, has cost DKK 1,000 throughout the year, and it is set up to DKK 1,500 for 6 weeks and then comes on “sale” for DKK 1,000 again, this is misleading, w…

This probably just works against shoppers in Denmark, doesn't it? Global brands are going to likely raise their prices across the board. When Black Friday comes, what's left to do but limit the possible discount in countries where there is a similar restriction?

I can't tell if I'm seeing in-country prices from retailers in Denmark, but the Samsung 'The Frame' TV 55" (QE55LS03A) seems to be available all over the planet. This morning at bestbuy.com it's listed at normally $1499US, for sale at $999US. We typically get a local sales tax added to that of ~7%, so just under $1100US out the door.

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