Americans are obsessed with deals, especially when it comes to Black Friday. For years, people have camped outside their favorite stores after a big Thanksgiving feast or forced themselves awake in the early morning to browse the virtual shopping aisles. The truth is that many of us find pleasure in buying merchandise at the deepest discounts and knowing we beat our fellow sale-addicted shoppers to the punch.
Black Friday shopping was disrupted quite a bit by the COVID-19 pandemic last year, with in-person sales down 37% from 2019. This year, merchants will be once again open to crowds, though many of the 100 million Americans who shopped online last year may choose to do so again.
While Black Friday is traditionally associated with the best prices relative to the rest of the year, we should pause from our spending and ask how good of a deal we are really getting. As it turns out, 23% of items will offer no savings compared to their pre-Black Friday prices this year. According to WalletHub’s holiday shopping survey, 27% of American consumers are planning to spend less during the 2021 holiday season relative to 2020.
To separate myth from fact, WalletHub compared pre- and actual Black Friday prices for a broad selection of items. Using the price difference of each item, we isolated the offers that are truly worth the hassle of participating in America’s biggest shopping craze.
Best Deals Overall
What to Buy on Black Friday
| Dell XPS 15 Laptop (15.6" FHD + 500-Nit Display, 11th Gen Intel Core i9-11900H, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3050 Ti, 4 GB GDDR6) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $2,000 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $3,024 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $1,024 Dell Home |
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| ProForm Carbon T7 Treadmill with 30 day iFIT Subscription | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $650 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $1,000 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $350 Academy Sports + Outdoors |
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| SAMSUNG 55" Class 4K Crystal UHD (2160P) LED Smart TV with HDR | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $478 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $598 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $120 Walmart |
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| EGO POWER+ 56 Volt Self-Propelled Two-Stage Snow Thrower | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $1,299 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $2,399 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $1,100 Ace Hardware |
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| LG 30" Combination Double Electric Convection Wall Oven with Built-In Microwave, Infrared Heating, and Wifi - Black Stainless Steel | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $3,000 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $4,999 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $1,999 Best Buy |
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| Firman 2900W Running / 3200W Peak Gasoline Powered Inverter Generator | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $550 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $996 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $446 Costco |
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| Occasions 20' Tall Giant Santa Inflatable | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $130 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $260 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $130 Best Buy |
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| KitchenAid® KSM150PS Artisan 5-qt. Stand Mixer | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $350 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $549 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $199 Kohl's |
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| Fossil Men's Bronson Chronograph Gray Stainless Steel Bracelet Watch 44mm | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $118 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $290 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $172 Macy's |
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| Keurig K-Supreme Single Serve Coffee Maker | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $70 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $131 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $61 JCPenney |
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| Catherine Malandrino 3-Pc. Transcendent Gift Set | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $25 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $130 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $105 Macy's |
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| iBUYPOWER Gaming Desktop Trace 5 MR 181I (Intel Core i9 11th Gen 11900KF 3.50GHz, 32GB DDR4, 1 TB PCIe SSD, AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, Windows 10 Home 64-bit) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $2,600 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $2,984 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $384 Newegg |
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| Realspace® Magellan 59"W Manager's Desk, Espresso | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $165 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $268 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $103 Office Depot and OfficeMax |
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| L.O.L Surprise! OMG Movie Magic Studios With 12 Dolls and 70+ Surprises | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $119 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $180 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $61 Walmart |
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| Abbyson Holloway Mid-century Modern Top Grain Leather Armchair | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $768 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $1,100 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $332 Overstock.com |
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| Lowrance Hook-2 12" TripleShot US Inland Fishfinder | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $700 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $1,149 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $450 Academy Sports + Outdoors |
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| Osaki OS-Pro Yamato Massage Chair (Black) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $1,999 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $3,999 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $2,000 Sam's Club |
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| LG SP2 2.1 Channel 100W All in One Soundbar with Fabric Wrap | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $130 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $200 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $70 Target |
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| Marcy MD-5191 Smith Cage Home Gym | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $600 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $1,651 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $1,051 Academy Sports + Outdoors |
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| Ivy Boho 4 Tier Solid Wood Ladder Bookshelf - Saracina Home | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $127 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $270 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $143 Target |
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*Depending on an item, our research team collected one or more of its advertised prices between Oct. 15 and Nov. 12. The “Pre-Black Friday Price” is the lowest of those prices for each item.
Best & Worst Product Categories
Percentages were calculated based on only the items in each category that matched offers posted on Amazon.com prior to Black Friday.
Share of Good Deals by Retailer
Below is a comparison of retailers according to the percentage of “good” deals they offer — that is, compared with the same products from Amazon.com. If the price offered by retailers is lower than the price on Amazon.com, this was considered a good deal, with the opposite representing a bad deal. Please note that complete data were not available for some items and therefore were excluded from our analysis.
Top 5 Deals by Retailer
*Depending on an item, our research team collected one or more of its advertised prices between Oct. 15 and Nov. 12. The “Pre-Black Friday Price” is the lowest of those prices for each item.
**A negative value indicates that a shopper would spend less by waiting until Black Friday to purchase the item.
Ask the Experts
Is Black Friday really the best time to buy on a discount, or is it just a marketing ploy? We asked a panel of experts to share some insider secrets for Black Friday shoppers. Click on the experts’ profiles below to read their bios and responses to the following key questions:
- What types of products are better to buy on Black Friday versus other times of the year?
- Should most consumers ignore promotional deals where retailers provide deep discounts on a limited stock of an item? How can consumers judge if these “doorbusters” are worth the race to snag a deal?
- What is a good strategy for identifying the best deals on Black Friday?
- All things considered, are Black Friday discounts worth the hassle?
- What items do you think will be in higher demand this year compared to previous years?
Ask the Experts
- Jonathan Z. Zhang
Ph.D. – Dean’s Distinguished Research Fellow, Associate Professor of Marketing – Colorado State University
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- Ayelet Israeli
Marvin Bower Associate Professor – Harvard Business School
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- On Amir
Wolfe Family Presidential Endowed Chair in Life Sciences, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship, Professor of Marketing, Rady School of Management – University of California San Diego
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- Andrew Burnstine
Ph.D. – Associate Professor, College of Business and Management – Lynn University
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- Aniruddha Pangarkar
Assistant Professor of Marketing, The Austin E. Cofrin School of Business – University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
Read More
Methodology
In order to determine the best and worst items to buy on Black Friday, WalletHub first determined each item’s “Pre-Black Friday Price” by collecting its advertised price on Amazon.com between Oct. 15 and Nov. 12. For certain items, we collected two prices during that period and in such cases chose the lowest to represent the “Pre-Black Friday Price.”
We then collected the advertised price on 2021 Black Friday Ads for the same item on Black Friday in order to determine its “Black Friday Price.” Our sample excludes deals that did not have calculable percentage markdowns.
Finally, we ranked the items according to the overall difference in their prices between the two dates and determined which products would pay off the most for a shopper’s Black Friday hassle.
Sources: Data used to conduct this study were collected from each retailer’s official website, BlackFriday.com and Amazon.com.