It is November and Black Friday is approaching along with Cyber Monday, the day when more offers are published in online stores and its lesser-known little brother. Many of us are going to take advantage of the Black Friday sales this year to be able to do our Christmas shopping, or improve our PC, or get that sale game ...
But as happens every year, the offers can cloud our view and judgment and for that reason we bring another survival guide to Black Friday with tips, and adapted to 2021. Take note and learn because you never know when these tips will be useful, they can get you a bargain or save you an offer that does not turn out to be.
Table of Contents
Have a budget ready and stick to it as much as possible
Do you have 50, 500 or 100 euros to spend on the 2021 Black Friday? All right, stick with him as much as you can and try not to overdo it. Write down all the purchases you have made with the final cost and calculate what you have left to know how much money you can afford to spend this Black Friday. You can exceed a small percentage of the budget as long as it is for a special offer and something you want and need.
Books, manga and comics will not have special offers on Black Friday 2021, at least in Spain
Due to a Royal Decree of 2007, books cannot have a discount of more than 5% with respect to the price set by the publisher, except on Book Day, which will have a 10% discount. This decree was requested by the booksellers so that department stores do not compete with them.
With that, don't wait for Black Friday to buy books, comics or manga at a lower price, because it will not compensate. Think that buying books that would originally cost 100 euros, the discount would be 5 euros at most. Because of that difference, you can go to the bookseller closest to you and buy them there. You can use the web AllYourBooks.com for them to ask for it and let you know when it arrives at the store. It is possible that a book in its international version will be discounted, but shipping costs may make this method not worth it.
An international carrier crisis is looming, so beware of relying on shipments
If we didn't have enough with the electronic component crisis, one of carriers is looming. This advises us to be careful to rely on carriers if we need the shopping this Black Friday 2021 in time for christmas.
Many stores operating across the country now have a “Click and Collect” option for purchases made online. This is ideal if you are looking for something that interests you on their website, and you have a franchise nearby to go to pick up your order. This in big cities like Madrid and Barcelona is going to be convenient, and even in some neighboring cities. On the way to work or on the way back, we can take the opportunity to pick up our Black Friday purchases and not fear that they will be delayed.
Always look at the final price, not the Black Friday deal
No matter how much "offer" or "last chance" they put on Black Friday, don't focus on the percentage of the discount, but on the final sale price. If you need shipping, see if there are additional costs for shipping or if they ask for a minimum purchase so that it is free, since in this way it is a hidden expense.
Does that offer leave you a final price that you can pay and for which you can consider your purchase and does it make a notable difference with respect to the original price? If so, take advantage. Keep in mind that it is not uncommon for some stores to gradually increase the price of the items to give them a greater discount on the occasion of Black Friday, which luckily for us we have price trackers or we can look for official prices in press releases or view price fluctuation using Wayback Machine.
Comparing prices on Black Friday is always a good investment of time
There are chains that have their own brands and for which they do not have to compete in offers, with which it is not worth comparing. An example of this are the clothing brands with their own store, which know that only they offer certain models and therefore have no competition from which to remove sales. It is not the same in video games and electronic products that are sold in multiple chains.
This is why it is always worth looking, even on the web, at the prices offered by each store under the black friday deals, if they offer us click and collect and if they give us shipping. As we said, always look at the final price before making purchases.
Take advantage of items that do not usually drop in price
Electronic components and video games are two sectors that usually have notable price reductions on Black Friday, and in 2021 their demand is expected to rise and therefore the needs to liquidate them. To compare if a physical game has a good offer, buy its official price in the digital store of the corresponding platform, being the PlayStation Store for PS3, PS4, PS VIta and PS5 games, the Xbox Store for XBox 360 games, Xbox One and Xbox series X and S series, and the Nintendo eShop for Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch games.
Beware the subscriptions that the devil carries
If you are going to give away a subscription to Netflix, HBOmax, Disney +, PlayStation plus, Xbox Live, Xbox GamePass, Filmin or Nintendo Switch online, whichever it is, be careful with the conditions of the prepaid cards. Unless they explicitly indicate a balance in money, not a type of subscription; you will have to be careful with automatic renewals.
When you enter a code redeemable for a subscription, you will have to enter bank details such as a credit or debit card. It is claimed that they are to verify that the subscription is used by someone real and they will not charge you to link it, but they will charge you automatically when it is finished. This is the same as the trial periods that are given and hope that users forget to cancel it due to forgetfulness or laziness. So if you give a subscription or buy it, tell whoever is going to put their data to remember to cancel the automatic renewal once the end of the subscription period of the gift card approaches.
Cybersecurity is important when shopping online
It will not fail that several chains will ask us to create a dedicated account only for take advantage of Black Friday deals, and more in 2021 when online shopping has increased due to the pandemic. As the accounts in online stores in the end are going to send us many newsletters and offers that do not interest us, we want our email to fill up with spam, or we simply do not want to give our email to a store for a single purchase and not we will return to it in months or years.
In the event that we have to give an email account to create an account, we have the possibility of creating an email account only to give in online stores in which we do not go to buy often. There are also websites like 10 minute mail that creates us an ideal email account to give to websites and stores that we do not trust in order not to receive newsletters or notices, and that if there is a security hole, our main account is not compromised.
We may not be able to opt for a points program if we lose store login details. But we must take into account if it pays to give our email so that they send us many emails or suffer an attack and that attack compromises our other accounts.
