Thursday thoughts: Black Friday ads & holiday price matching at Target & Best Buy!

Posted: October 18, 2012

With the holidays fast-approaching, talk of Black Friday deals has begun. There are even some early Black Friday ads being released. On top of that, both Target and Best Buy have announced they will be price-matching this holiday season! You can start planning your holiday shopping strategy before you even get into your Halloween candy stash!

Black Friday: If you are not familiar with the shopping phenomenon known as Black Friday, it is the Friday after Thanksgiving and is the unofficial start to the holiday shopping season. It's called “Black Friday” because this is usually the time when many stores start to make money and go into the black, as far as accounting is concerned.

There are a number of websites dedicated to getting Black Friday ads from retailers. Often, these ads show up on Black Friday websites before the retailers even officially release them, which usually does not amuse the retailers.

Two of my favorite Black Friday websites have just started posting Black Friday predictions and information as well as a few early ads. If you plan on doing any holiday shopping this year, I recommend you check out both of these sites including Black Friday at gottadeal.com HERE and bfads.net HERE.

In addition to Black Friday sales, Target and Best Buy are offering a new way to save at their stores this year: Price Matching! Although there are restrictions regarding the policies, there are still some great opportunities to save you some money and limit the amount of stores you may need to visit to conquer your holiday shopping. Here are the details for both price-matching policies and more information can be found on both of the Black Friday sites mentioned above.

Best Buy will begin price-matching on Sunday, November 4th. They will price match from a list of 20 online retailers only but they will not price match the week of Black Friday through Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving). This obviously means that for the best Black Friday electronics deals, you won't be able to do all your shopping at Best Buy using the price match offer. They will only match prices on exact items that they carry so the model numbers have to be the same for Best Buy to match the price from another online retailer.

Target will also be price-matching this holiday season beginning November 1 through December 16. Customers will be able to price match online deals from Amazon.com, Walmart.com, BestBuy.com, Toysrus.com, Babiesrus.com and Target.com. You can show the Target cashier the price on your Smartphone to get the deal or a Target employee can look up the price. The store also indicated that there would be free wi-fi in all their stores during the holidays. I am picturing some long lines while employees look up prices for customers online at the register. I wonder how this will play out. More details will released soon regarding the Target policy.

Apparently these price matching polices are meant to keep folks from testing out products in the stores and then going online to purchase them at a lower price (known as showrooming). Do you think it will work? What are your thoughts on the new policies?

9 Comments

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I can't stress enough how much I loathe Gift-mas shopping. Can't I get you a present because I saw something perfect and it's Tuesday? Why does the approach of the 25th of December require that everyone lose their minds and buy me pink sweaters with teddy bears on them? (for those of you who've met me, yeah, I got one of those from my aunt a couple Gift-mases back, can you even picture me in something like that?)

I don't like anyone enough, including my children, to get up before dawn to stand in line with deranged people to buy what will ultimately become someone's junk. Junk. That is MOST of what people get excited to go buy.

Food and family, good. Piles of junk, bad.

So ...

Bah! Humbug!

Oxymoron02
October 19, 2012 1:39 a.m.

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I am one of the crazy ones that loves the thrill -- we don't go super early anymore, but I like going to AC Moore, Target, then the Lego store at the mall. I also go to Kohl's but wait until the crazier people have cleared out. Last year it was deserted by 7am :)

stephlw
October 18, 2012 11:16 p.m.

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I am going to start Thankgiving with a 5K run called the Turkey trot! It is to bring awareness to obesity, which is a little odd on the day of the year that is mostly about food! :-) I will be hitting the drug stores for the good deals though!

watchhillgirl
October 18, 2012 10:05 p.m.

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pss3 - you are so right about the drug store Black Friday deals (which usually start on Thanksgiving Day for those new to this). I usually put the turkey in the oven on T-Day and then hit CVS and Walgreens when they open to score their Black Friday deals. As we get closer to the big day, I'll definitely be posting a detailed list of the drug store Black Friday deals!

Faye Prosser - Smart Shopper
October 18, 2012 8:42 p.m.

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I can't wait to see the CVS ad...it had lots of good deals last year. I will be skipping the outlets in Smithfield and Wal-mart this year. Not enough deals at the outlets and just plain crazy folks at Wal-mart. I will probably do Kohl's and Target at White Oak. I got over $250 worth of stuff at Kohl's for under $60 and then got Kohl's Cash on top of that!

Of course I will also be checking Amazon's deals and cyber Monday. Bring on the cold weather and hot cocoa!

pss3
October 18, 2012 8:29 p.m.

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I am right there with all of you - no more crack of dawn, waiting in line Black Fridays for me. I will be doing a little online shopping though and I have done a lot of my shopping already.

I do know people who love the thrill of Black Friday up-all-night shopping though. They go with friends or spouses and really have fun.

Just today, I realized that Swagbucks offers gift cards to Zappos.com and the shoes my daughter wants are on their website! I am hoping to earn enough SB's to make the shoes at least 1/2 off or more!

Nakabi - you are so right about how employees are treated on Black Friday. All through college, I worked in retail including selling shoes and jewelry for Sears and working at Pier 1 Imports. The holidays are rough. Most people are kind and in the spirit of the holiday, but those who are not can be brutal. My heart goes out to every person working retail during the holidays.

Faye Prosser - Smart Shopper
October 18, 2012 4:47 p.m.

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It's not even November and people are already talking about Christmas???????? CRAZY! I buy 1 gift a month starting in January and that way by the middle of the year all my shopping is done. I just cannot believe that people will stand in line for hours at 2:30am or some crazy hour just for shopping.. I can just imagine the looooong lines as people are trying to price-match. And you know that some of those customers are going to have the worst attitudes and be taking it out on the poor employees who are just trying to do their job.

nakabi
October 18, 2012 4:35 p.m.

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I won't be going anywhere near walmart! It is actually getting too dangerous! I went in to a Walmart last Thanksgiving evening, not really looking for anything in particular, but left because people were just acting really crazy. I think people really need to remember what the holiday is all about. Ok, that is my gripe for the day! Happy Holiday's everyone!

watchhillgirl
October 18, 2012 3:58 p.m.

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Too soon! Gah! Christmas snuck up on me this year. I anticipate long lines at Target. Thank goodness Walmart isn't doing this. They already have long lines and minimal registers opened.