We are already in the week of Black Friday, today and until the sales end next week we are going to have a barrage of promotions and offers. Therefore, we are going to try to give you tips to make the most of Black Fridayto be able to identify the offers that are really worth it and try to avoid falling into the typical traps that are common in these events.
Because stores use a lot of trickery to pretend that their sales are better than they really are. Sometimes they tell you that they have reduced a product by 150 euros, for example, but then it turns out that it is only 50 if you take into account the price it was at until now. In addition, there are also signs with misleading percentages, many things.
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But before starting with our advice, we remind you that we have a whole team that is searching the internet all year round in search of the best offers. They are the companions of Xataka Selection that these days they will give everything so that you don’t get lost the best offers for Friday and the weekendsince they will cover all the offers that happen from Black Friday to CyberMonday.
And if you’re too lazy to visit their website, you can enter the official channel of Xataka Selección on Telegram, on t.me/xatakaseleccion. When you enter the link, Telegram will open on your mobile or computer, and you will have the button Jointo enter the channel and see the publications of the best offers.
The Xataka Selección channel works every day of the year, so you can stay to always see the offers that come out. But during Black Friday, we are also going to offer you special content such as compilations with thematic offerswhich can help you even more than individual offers. The idea is that you don’t need anything else so as not to miss out on the best offers.
Always compare offers
Let’s get into the matter. The first thing is always compare the price of products that you see on offer with what they have in other establishments. This will help you give greater context to this offer, no longer based on the supposed previous price of where the product is discounted, but by seeing what others are doing.
Because one store may tell you that this product at 100 euros is a stratospheric offer, but other stores have it at 110. In addition to giving you this context, you will also see that many stores match the offers of its competitors in periods such as Black Friday.
This means that if you find the same offer in several places, you will always be able to choose the store whose conditions convince you the most or that conveys greater reliability.
Be careful with price increases and decreases
As we have told you, some establishments can be rogue, and many will use tactics to mislead customers or make it seem that the offer is better than it really is. A common tactic is raise the price of a product a few days before before the sales begin, so that they can later indicate that the discount is much greater than it really is.
Another common practice is to put as the previous price one that did not existsuch as the reference one. Imagine a product that when it came out did so at a recommended price of 600 euros, but that is always sold at 450. So, if they lower it to 400 they can say that the reduction is 200 euros instead of the 50 that they have actually lowered it. This is done a lot.
You should also know that prices vary greatly over timeand that a supposedly very good offer may be worse than another that the same product had last, and the price may even be higher than that of other establishments. That is why the context of the offer is important to make the decision, and as we told you before, also compare the price with that of other sites.
Don’t be carried away by temptation
Always be careful with impulse purchases, because many establishments will use language in their sales designed to increase temptation. Therefore, it is important to have a cool head and have a list of priority purchasesof types of products you really want or specific models.
For each product you can set a target price so that, if you see that the sale is approaching, then you can go for it. This can help you avoid jumping in if the discount is small and remains at prices that you can bet on any other day.
With a list of these you will also save yourself work on Black Friday, because you can go directly to look for these products and see if any of them have been lowered. You can also add others that are less essential but that also interest you, just to have a little order.
It doesn’t hurt either set a budget and force yourself to stick to it. To do this, take into account the products you do want to buy and the possible ones. The main thing is to set a fixed ceiling, but then you can make levels depending on possible priority purchases, or even establish the fixed budget for non-priority purchases. It’s all about organizing.
Review return policies
Both on the Black Friday weekend and at the end of any purchase you are going to make, it is important review the store’s return policyboth physically and online. This way you cover your back, for example, if today you buy something impulsively but tomorrow another establishment discounts it even more. You can return the first one.
There are some stores that will charge you for the return, you will have to pay for the return shipping, and other stores will take care of all the costs. Others may even have problems with returns. Therefore, it is important to review these policies first and have a list of stores where you can buy and you know that it will be safe because there will be no problems with returns.
Search price history comparators
Finally, as we always tell you, it is very useful to have price comparators that are able to tell you the history of a store. They don’t usually work for everyone, but many of them will, for example, help you on Amazon, telling you how the price of a product has evolved over time.
These comparators will give you valuable context by allowing you to see past offers and the average price, and will help you detect traps such as price increases in previous days. This way you will know how to assess whether the current offer is good.
Keepa It is possibly the best online tool to track prices on Amazon. You have the website, but also an extension for google chrome, Firefox, Opera and Microsoft Edge. You also have alternatives like CamelCamelCamelor even the tab Products from Googlewhere you can compare the price of a product in different stores.
AI can help you
We are in the era of artificial intelligenceso you can now use ChatGPT for Black Fridayand this can also be applied Gemini or other AI charbots. For example, you can ask them to tell you the best prices for a specific productand they should be able to look them up on the Internet and respond to you.
If you have questions about products, you can ask them to tell you models that fit certain needs or specifications, you can ask for comparisons, or you can obtain information about the stores and their return policies. Just remember to check all the information it gives you to avoid the hallucinations that AIs have.
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