• Aceticon@lemmy.world
    94·
    13 days ago

    Here in Europe they’re forced to show the lowest price of the last 30 days and I was looking at some games in GoG and for several interesting games their Black Friday “discounted” price is €15 whilst the lowest price in the last 30 days is €10.

    So the Black Friday “discount” is in fact 50% more expensive than the previous time that game had a “discount” which happenned not even that long ago.

    • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      24·
      13 days ago

      That’s regionally specific then, because they sure as hell don’t do that where i live (EU member). They have to compare with non-sale price within a month or something, so it’s complete bullshit here because they artificially inflate prices prior to black Friday “sales”.

    • Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de
      7·
      12 days ago

      Most companies have adapted to that by now. The raise the orice for (at least) rhirty days so that it still looks legit.

      The one in your example seems like a failure at that.

  • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
    714·
    13 days ago

    While you do need to be careful about this bullshit, things do actually often hit lows for black Friday sales. Particularly electronics.

    • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
      42·
      13 days ago

      But definitely double check SKUs. A lot of Black Friday products are more cheaply made than their usual counterparts, even if they outwardly seem like the same product.

      • jballs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        241·
        13 days ago

        I used to work at Best Buy in the Video department. We got all new products shipped in just for Black Friday. One year we got these $40 VCRs (I realize I’m dating myself here) that we must have sold a billion of. Within the week, we had so many returns that we didn’t have any place to put them.

        • Thassodar@lemm.eeEnglish
          9·
          13 days ago

          Similarly Best Buy’s brand, Insignia, is a mix mashed TV full of components from other TV brands (unless that has changed in the last 4 years). They’re usually the ones to go on deep discount but, due to the nature of the internals not being from one company, they’re nearly impossible to repair.

          So, although your Insignia may last a year and a half or two, the Sharp panel may fail, the Phillips backlight could fail, or the PCB from Samsung could fail, adding to more e-waste.

        • CaptPretentious@lemmy.world
          8·
          13 days ago

          TVs are a classic example. I found luggage accidentally one time years ago. Was so poorly made I was shocked it hasn’t disintegrated in transit. Immediately returned it. When I did some research, it looked like none had ever actually sold off that SKU until Black Friday, and they had a stupid price listed months before hand for that deep discount the day of.

        • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
          3·
          13 days ago

          I saw it when I worked retail (which was a long time ago, so I guess as an anecdote, add an extra grain of salt; maybe things have changed but I doubt it).

          We would get pallets of product right before Black Friday, and curiously, they would overlap with product we already had in the store. For example, if we carried a 40" TV from brand X (TVs are very notorious for this Black Friday swapping), we’d get a pallet of 40" TVs from brand X which looked exactly the same, had the same specs on the box, but a different SKU. In some cases we were instructed to remove the original stock and replace it with the Black Friday stock, which would be priced lower.

          As others have mentioned, returns on the sale stock would be high. And there would be interesting differences, like an obviously cheaper remote or an overall lighter unit.

          And of course sometimes there was no overlap – we’d get some product from some no name brand that just sat out in the aisle on its pallet. These were absolutely only brought in for Black Friday and I have to assume they were the cheapest imaginable garbage inside.

          I’ve never sought out a Black Friday sale since those days.

    • Sami@lemmy.zipEnglish
      15·
      13 days ago

      You gotta track stuff you want to buy ahead of the pre-sale price hikes. Depending on where you live, what you want to buy and how much money you make that might be too much time and energy so checking price history sites (like camelcamelcamel for amazon) when they’re available also works in a pinch.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      81·
      13 days ago

      For like the first ten of them and you have to get to the store 6 hours before it opens and then fight gladiator matches with all the other crazy people to be at the cash register first. No thanks, man!

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
      2·
      12 days ago

      I went clothes shopping in the US today and saved 496 dollars with all the coupons and sales, and got mountains of stuff. I always do it that way, but I shop the day after Black Friday and the deals are still the same. US department stores on holiday long weekends are the best deal ever, I save money all year and go for a great big shop.

    • Starayo@lemm.eeEnglish
      10·
      13 days ago

      Yeah, always gotta check price history. Especially on Aliexpress.

      Was looking at buying a particular retro game emulator handheld. Black friday pricing was the same as non-black-friday pricing, but it was “discounted” from $300, which it has never actually been sold at. Still bit the bullet and bought it because it did end up decently cheaper using one of their “spend $x and get $y off” coupons.

    • Kroxx@lemm.ee
      1·
      12 days ago

      Keppa is a bit better imo. A lot of price history goes back pre covid (not like it matters I just find it interesting to see), camelcamelcamel doesn’t. IIRC had something to do with Amazon making them

  • stoy@lemmy.zip
    291·
    13 days ago

    Most price changes I have seen goes like this:

    September: 300

    Start of november: 500

    Black friday: 250 - 50% off!

  • Katana314@lemmy.worldEnglish
    261·
    13 days ago

    I’ve learned my lesson. I bought a graphics card and a monitor a few weeks ago. They were the kinds of desirable purchases that were never going to get discounted on Black Friday.

    • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      7·
      13 days ago

      Been watching a new GPU for the last week, waiting for my paycheck to come in

      35% discount, steepest in it’s history according to CCC, holds right until this morning, payday, now it’s a 5% discount

      Its not the usual scummy price shit but I’m def pissed off

    • Valencia@sh.itjust.works
      5·
      12 days ago

      Idk, I bought a 4k 240 hz oled monitor for $300 off for black Friday, the lowest price it’s ever been. I think deals are still out there.

      • CrowAirbrush@lemmy.world
        4·
        12 days ago

        Deals are there, many are not worth the wait and the real (good) deals are often less desireable items.

        At least from what i’ve seen myself.

        But i always hope the more expensive stuff gets a discount so i can get something better than what i would’ve bought otherwise.

        Right now there are a couple 4080 super’s discounted but it’s only like €80 difference for a model i would only buy if the difference was larger, so i almost ended up buying a non discounted 4080 super model.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.eeEnglish
    171·
    12 days ago

    Capitalism is cancer, no it really is. It’s a system demanding infinite growth in a finite system. What the fuck else would you call that?

    • lud@lemm.ee
      23·
      12 days ago

      I thought capitalism was just that the market should be open.

      I didn’t recall any mentions of infinite growth.

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
        51·
        12 days ago

        There’s really no point arguing with someone who thinks in memes, and definitely not with someone who leads with “Capitalism is cancer.” But business does have a “grow or die” philosophy, which could be what the person means by misapplying the term “infinite”. The mainstream business world knows literally infinite growth isn’t possible - although many people in business don’t see or acknowledge specific limits, or think they’re so far away they can be treated as infinite right now.

        • Queen HawlSera@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          12 days ago

          This, they keep thinking profits have to go up indefinitely, so they raise it far beyond what can be reasonably accounted for inflation. Then they wonder why no one’s buying.

          The idea that “people need to afford your product” doesn’t register to these clowns.

          • LovableSidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            11 days ago

            Except that’s not what’s happening - people still ARE buying, and that’s why jacked-up covid prices have stayed high. Companies found that ridiculously high prices didn’t hurt sales, so they see no reason to roll them back. Amazingly it turns out Econ 101 doesn’t represent immutable laws of physics.

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        11 days ago

        If that’s all it was or if that was actually what it was, but the markets aren’t open. They’re closed off to anyone but the rich

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    12 days ago

    But srsly there are best times of the year to buy a lot of things. For example, Christmas decorations are marked way down right after Christmas, and TVs are discounted right before the Super Bowl. Month-by-month guide