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. In fact, 66.5 million Americans shopped in person on Black Friday last year, while 88 million made purchases online.
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, 27% of items will offer no savings compared to their pre-Black Friday prices this year. According to WalletHub’s holiday shopping survey, 28% of American consumers are planning to spend less during the 2022 holiday season relative to 2021.
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
| LG gram 17" Intel Evo Platform Laptop - 12th Gen Intel i7-1260P - 2560 x 1600 Display - Windows (1655234) Model (17Z90Q-K.AAC7U1) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $1,100 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $1,416 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $316 Costco |
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| Osaki TITAN Pro 8500 Series Black Faux Leather Reclining 2D Massage Chair with Zero Gravity, Foot and Calf Massage, Heated Seat (Model #TP-8500BLACK) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $1,599 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $2,755 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $1,156 The Home Depot |
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| Everlast Nevatear 70 lb Platinum Heavy Bag, Silver/Black, SKU: 112837526, ITEM: P00001220 | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $64 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $200 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $136 Academy Sports + Outdoors |
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| Northlight 8' Canadian Pine Pre-Lit LED Artificial Christmas Tree with Candlelight Lights | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $441 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $696 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $255 Big Lots |
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| LG - 70" Class UP7070 Series LED 4K UHD Smart webOS TV (70UP7070PUE) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $550 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $797 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $247 Best Buy |
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| Pit Boss Navigator 850 Wood Pellet Grill, SKU: 137110884, ITEM: PBPEL085010527 | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $450 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $859 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $409 Academy Sports + Outdoors |
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| Therabody - RecoveryAir Pneumatic Compression System - Medium Set - Grey (AIRBDL-MP2-PKG-US) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $350 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $749 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $399 Best Buy |
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| Trinity 6-Pc. Garage Storage System, black textured (Model TLSPBK-0617) (275779) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $1,000 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $1,500 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $500 BJ's |
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| Ninja Foodi NeverStick Premium Hard-Anodized 10-pc Cookware Set C39500 | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $250 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $450 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $200 Kohl's |
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| Beautyrest 12" Silver BRS900 Medium-Firm Mattress, King Size (1351200) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $700 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $1,099 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $399 Costco |
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| SanDisk - Extreme Portable 2TB External USB-C NVMe SSD, (SDSSDE61-2T00-G25) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $150 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $460 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $310 Best Buy |
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| DPS 3D Insight Gaming Chair (1518239), Blue | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $140 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $245 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $105 Costco |
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| Michael Aram Butterfly Ginkgo Large Footed Centerpiece Bowl (4435787) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $1,080 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $1,344 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $264 Macy's |
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| Cuisinart® Precision Master™ 5.5-Quart Stand Mixer, Model #SM-50BC, 7801683 | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $200 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $300 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $100 JCPenney |
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| Yeyian Gaming Desktop Kunai X21 Intel Core i5 12th Gen 12600K (3.70GHz) 16GB DDR4 1 TB NVMe Gen 4 SSD NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Windows 11 Home 64-bit (YPB-KUN-X21) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $1,199 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $1,499 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $300 Newegg |
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| Realspace® Magellan 59"W L-Shape Corner Desk, Gray (Mfr Code HS-MG-2060) (#822239) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $200 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $480 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $280 Office Depot and OfficeMax |
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| Sharper Image Toy RC Thunderbolt Jet X-2 Stunt Drone (1015433) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $42 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $139 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $97 Walmart |
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| Lenovo ThinkStation P340 Desktop Workstation i9-10900 32GB RAM 512GB SSD | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $1,241 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $1,719 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $478 Target |
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| WEMAX Go Advanced Portable Smart Laser Projector, Ultra Mini 1080p Projector, 4K Supported, Built-in Battery, Auto Keystone, Bluetooth 5.0 (L065FGE-US) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $540 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $800 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $260 Walmart |
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| Samsung 35.75 in. W 28.2 cu. ft. 3-Door French Door Refrigerator in Fingerprint Resistant Stainless Steel, Standard Depth (#RF28T5001SR) (SKU #1005641977) | |
| Black Friday Price After Discount: $1,498 Pre-Black Friday Price*: $1,849 Additional Discount for Waiting Until Black Friday: $351 The Home Depot |
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*Depending on an item, our research team collected one or more of its advertised prices between Oct. 18 and Nov. 15. 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. 18 and Nov. 15. 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
Associate Professor of Marketing, College of Business – The University of Akron
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MBA – Executive Director of Marketing, Enrollment and Communication, Senior Marketing Educator, W. Frank Barton School of Business – Wichita State University
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Ph.D. – Professor of Marketing – Penn State Lehigh Valley
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Ph.D. – Professor of Marketing; Chair, Management, Marketing, and Professional Sales, Academic Lead, WP MBA Online, Cotsakos College of Business – William Paterson University
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Ph.D. – Director, Doctorate of Business Administration Program – Bellevue University
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Professor Emeritus of Marketing, Stern School of Business – New York University
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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. 18 and Nov. 15. 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 2022 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.
