November 3, 2023, 11:13 a.m. |
Reading time: 4 minutes
Black Friday is a day for bargain hunting. Every year, around a month before Christmas, retailers and manufacturers lure people with countless offers and discounts. This year the date falls on November 24th. At Amazon, the bargain week even starts on November 17th. But what kind of landmines lurk in the sea of discounts and how can you tell whether a bargain is really a bargain?
The tag originally comes from America and was first introduced by Apple in Germany in 2006. It is traditional for Black Friday to fall on the Friday after Thanksgiving every year. There’s also a lot for technology fans – Black Friday offers from Amazon, Apple, Saturn, Otto, Media Markt and Co. lure you with supposedly attractive deals and worthwhile bargains. But when hunting, users should remain calm and watch out for some pitfalls.
The best strategies for bargain shopping on Black Friday
Keep a Cool Head
With all the discount wars that retailers have to offer not only in stores but also online, you can quickly fall into a buying frenzy. Be careful here! The discounts are often more apparent than real, as many retailers often state the recommended retail price of a product as the starting price for the percentage. This makes them seem particularly cheap, even though they can also be had for less on other days. This procedure has already come under heavy criticism.
With this bargain trap, sellers try to deceive their customers. Price search engines such as idealo.de,billiger.de orbilliger.de can help in this case. They put together offers from several thousand retailers and even compare the prices of goods historically. But on mydealz.de you can also find information about whether a supposed Black Friday bargain is really worth it.
Amazon has been taking action against fake offer prices for some time now with more transparency. Instead of the RRP, the retailer lists the most recent cheapest price for a large number of products. Buyers can therefore see at a glance how big the savings really are. You can read more about this here: New price information on Amazon – bad for retailers, good for customers.
On Black Friday, online shops also put a lot of pressure on customers to buy. The most popular trick: Certain products are only available for a limited time at a low price. Red bars that supposedly show dwindling stocks or expiring clocks are popular marketing tools. The rule here is to stay cool and don’t let yourself be put under pressure.
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Recognize fake shops and scammers
The next bargain trap is often laid by fraudsters who hope to do big business with fake shops at such a huge shopping event. Not every online shop is reputable. If you cannot find an imprint, information on data protection or cancellation policy on the website or if payment is only offered in advance, caution is advised. Often the money is gone, you don’t receive any goods and you can’t contact the dealer. A look at the price search engines provides final certainty. You should avoid shops that do not appear here or have not yet been rated. Test seals such as that from Trusted Shops also indicate whether the seller is a reputable seller.
Amazon Marketplace retailers are a special type of fake shop; there have been many reports of attempted fraud here in the past. The first clues in this field can be the dealer reviews: Are there any at all and how do they read?
Also read: Browser extension detects fraudulent shops on the Internet
Don’t just pay attention to the money…
… but also on personal data. Fraudsters don’t always just pretend to be a fake shop on Black Friday, but can also hide behind price comparison portals or bargain sites. They want to access the customer’s personal data and to do this they use so-called affiliate sites. They save the information and then sell it to large companies. You should therefore be careful where you enter your personal data and which cookies are issued by the website. The latter should be deleted regularly.
When is a bargain a bargain?
Because mega discounts and bargains are advertised on Black Friday, idealo.de carried out a study to see whether you can really save that much on that day. The average price savings in the 50 categories with the highest demand was just six percent last year. A few products were reduced by at least 20 percent. So here’s a tip: Don’t just pay attention to the percentages, but convert the savings into euros.
If you really want to save, you should approach Black Friday with preparation. Don’t be guided by impulse purchases, but instead think carefully about which products you need and have wanted for a long time. You can start the price comparison before Black Friday and possibly see a price development. This can help to keep track of things.
With material from dpa