Selfsufficientish.com

Black Friday deals ‘not all they seem,’ shoppers warned

Ah what it really is - shops trying to reuse old stock, reduce old stock, recycle old stock and hope we won't notice that we didn't want it anyway.

It's not so bad looking at it like that but you have to know what the original price was, if the item had been reduced before, if the price had gone up again ....

Bet no-one sees an iPhone X on special offer. Or a good quality diamond ring. Or a Tesla electric car. And when did you last go into a DFS shop in the UK and find that they didn't have a sale going on?

I agree, it's just another marketing ploy to hook people in to buy stuff they didn't know they wanted and almost certainly don't need.

I suppose if there is something you do need (say a new washing machine) and can wait until the day it might be possible to get a good saving - it doesn't really matter if something like that is older stock. I'm guessing that they bank on people not being able to restrict themselves to that one needed item.

Assuming they still make a profit over all on Black Friday (maybe not on one or two "loss leaders"), it really does make me mad at how over-priced most things must be the rest of the time.

I did after all fall into the bad ways of buying in the Black Friday sales. DT Brown the seed people are changing warehouses and were having a bit of a clearing out of seeds. I quite like their seeds so decided to take advantage of their offers to top up the seed box with some things I didn't have that I usually grow. And having cleared out a border on number 2 plot of raspberry canes which were doing nothing (no roots to speak of it turned out - age I thing and problem soil) next to a fence, I ordered some sweet peas which can grow up it. Just as a special treat as it's a long narrow border. And have plenty of raspberries on the number 1 plot there's no need for extras.

I saw their "brown Friday" emails. I don't need much in the way of seeds at the moment though. I like their trial seed offers too - I haven't seen any other seed sellers do this.

I didn't think I needed much in the way of seeds till I looked at their offers last Friday with the seed box by my side. I've got the trial size items that I would use.

I'd love a Bose sound system but £450 is an awful lot of money for a radio that plays CDs. And it's gone back up again to the odd £600. Nah think not. But I know how good they are.

Flo wrote:I'd love a Bose sound system

Ah, I'm afraid I did succumb.
I've had a pair of Bose wired headphones for ages and would thoroughly recommend them, what I call "high definition" in the audio world.
Anyway I've been hankering after some wireless, noise cancelling ones and they had the ones that have been recently superseded at near half price last week.
Nuff sed

I did go out and pick up a radio that doesn't play CDs for the sitting room after the sales. Pure Evoke never seems to come up in the sales mind you for some reason. I did decide I didn't need one that does internet radio mind. Had some sense. Maybe if I save up I could have the one that I dream of mind. In a couple of years. But then I'm self sufficient in radios now - two rooms that can use radios - two radios. Not being a user of tranny radios the kitchen does without.

I did succumb. I’d been thinking about a new vacuum cleaner for months (I don’t rush into these things). AO were offering the one I wanted at a whopping 80 quid off. Funny how all the other websites were advertising it at normal price at only 10 more than AO we’re selling it for. Just shows how overpriced they normally are.

Often sales are stock that don't sell anyway or attic clearing (left over stock that is perfectly good but out of date but that's another matter). Possibly AO were clearing out a line that didn't sell. However AO has an advantage in being online only and not have bricks and mortar sites with rent and rates to pay. A storehouse will cost less than half a dozen shops or more.

Funny how a lot of people won't take old lines when something newer comes in. Especially with electrics and technology. Strange things shoppers.

Flo wrote:Strange things shoppers.

There's a lot of time, money and "skill" put into turning shoppers into the strange things that only want the biggest, shiniest, newest etc etc.

We didn't get it in the sales but made a pretty good saving on our new vacuum cleaner (a couple of months ago - with five cats and a solid fuel boiler we couldn't wait!). The manufacturer brought out a new model so we bought the (price reduced) older model. No discernible difference that we could see other than an extra gadget, which we have managed to live without thus far in life, and price.

Try looking for the potential "extra's" you can haggle out of sales people when they won't negotiate much on price; in particular consumables that the item uses - things like vacuum cleaner bags, detergents , preserving bottles, spare blades, extra batteries etc.
These can sometimes add up to good savings - the price difference between what the retailer pays for the minor item and what they sell it for can be huge.

Good point.

Unfortunately that option isn't available to me as most of my shopping is done online.

I do remember getting a free pair of binoculars chucked in when I bought a digital camera many years ago. We still have the binoculars, they're fantastic - the camera is long gone. It was 1 megapixel (it felt so grand at the time) and my phone camera's resolution is 8x greater.