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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

#211

Post by mikepurvis »

GuB-42 wrote: post #204
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I don't know how it works in Denmark but I've seen that being worked around all the times. A typical thing is to make a special model just for the sales, which is the same as the normal model with maybe some small differences like firmware tweaks, different accessories, different stickers, etc... They put one or two samples in the corner of the shop at an inflated price, not intended for anyone to actually purchase,…

Mystery meat items like TVs and mattresses are ripe for these kinds of shenanigans.

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

#212

Post by rasz »

jcims wrote: post #200
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 pla…

QE55LS03A is available from >6 mayor retailers in Poland today at $900-930 free shipping, this price includes all the taxes and 2 year warranty. What is happening? US always had the lowest prices on electronics.

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

#213

Post by frobozz »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #206
jcims wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pla…

I've never heard this described as a tactic of international brands, but only of retailers, so I guess I would need to see data that showed that brands actually did this. And if the brand did this - how would it actually work. They would be telling the brand pay use 2000 for half the year, and then coming to black friday they would tell the brand now you only need to pay us 1500? I'm not getting the angle here.

I've normally thought of it as a retailer thing, but it does look a bit like it's brand-led in some cases.

I'm currently in the market for a few big ticket household items, and the Black Friday hype is everywhere I look. When I try to compare prices for specific models, they are suspiciously identical everywhere, with a few outliers charging the higher RRP.

I would expect a retailer-led approach to have a bit more variation. Just a few quid here or there, where some might have a genuine "clearance" need, others lower general overheads/margins etc.

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

#214

Post by manuu80 »

gaius_baltar wrote: post #11

This have been a joke for a few years here in Brazil, we call the day "Black Fraud" (sounds a little better in Portuguese) The relevant point is that Black Friday is an "artificial" event here: we do not celebrate Thanksgiving Day so there is no need for a the stores to get rid of unsold inventory. It started just ~10 years ago when marketers began advertising it as a sales day.

Ha,same in Argentina and we have:

cyber monday (that extends to cyber week)

electro fest (?)

black friday as well

hot sale

the only opportunity there is not around discounts (they just increase the price a coupe of days in advance), and more on having 12/18 months payments/installements without or very low interest.

Also, something funny happened in between: as these sites are re-marking everything, sometimes "bugs" appear as they might miss a zero (we have a lot of them =), or something like that. If you're lucky you can get the product no questions asked, or you can make a claim and they compensate, or worst case they cancel it and you get your money back.

[edited to add line breaks]

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

#215

Post by znpy »

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…

> 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!"

This sounds like pump&dump with extra steps.

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

#216

Post by fasouto »

ziml77 wrote: post #60
fasouto wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Maybe Amazon thinks camelcamelcamel is helping more than hurting?

But if they think so why do they have this clause that won't allow CCC competitors?

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

#217

Post by relaxing »

surge wrote: post #115
colechristensen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the day after Thanksgiving being a day my relatives (at least the ones interested in shopping in malls, etc) being excited about going shopping. Lots of people had the day off, originally I think "black Friday" just meant that stores were really busy.

It literally meant the day stores would go into the "black" because many stores would be in the red for the year overall until they sold so much on that one day they'd turn a profit for the year or go into the "black" on their accounting.

No stores operate at a loss for 10 months out of the year.

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

#218

Post by Symbiote »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #95
fivre wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terms of Service are universally wishlists of things a legal department may wish to enforce if they are so inclined. In this case, they are not so inclined.

Basically the same as warnings on medications. They list almost every known symptom without any sort of probability so they're almost useless.

In the EU, the symptoms are listed under headings like "More than 1 in 10 people had this" "Between 1 in 10 and 1 in 100 had this".

e.g. for the Moderna Covid vaccine, PDF, see "Possible side effects": https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/documents/product-information/s...

(I looked up St John's Wort, but its assessment doesn't have this. Possible because it is from a long time ago.)

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

#219

Post by simonh »

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…

In China "buy one, get one free" usually means if you buy a dress you get a belt to go with it free, or something like that.

In Europe, and I'm sure the US the items must be the same or of equivalent value. Also I believe the “full price” before discount must have been the offered price for a certain number of days in the recent past, but I can’t remember the details.

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

#220

Post by IshKebab »

kolla wrote: post #177
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.

That page could use the help of a designer / ux person. Things from the 90s look better than that.

keepa.com is an alternative. It has a Chrome extension that embeds the price graph on Amazon. Extremely useful.
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