Bedstar present the worst Black Friday deals
The day after Thanksgiving is notorious for its huge sales. Shops and retailers traditionally offer discounts on everything they can find, from clothes and toys all the way up to computers and flights.
What was once an American-only tradition has spread from the high street into the internet, and from the USA to countries all around the world.
Bedstar have rounded up some of the worst offers available in 2016 – whether it’s one bad item, or a whole range of products you should be avoiding. Luckily you don’t have to worry about bad Black Friday deals with Bedstar, as we’re offering great discounts and low prices on a range of our quality products, from grandiose small double beds to a wide range of mattresses.
Amazon dash buttons
Amazon’s latest Prime deal is on one of the most pointless products we’ve ever seen: a WiFi-enabled button linked to a brand and your account. Click it to order more of that product. They’re on sale for mundane household items, like dish soap, laundry detergent, and even tissues – things most people just pick up at the shop on the way home from work.
The dash button usually retails for £4.99, and it’s on offer with an 80% discount for only £0.99. There’s also a £4.99 discount on the first product you buy with it. But one of the most perplexing parts of this deal is it was only available on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, for a total of 24 hours.
High-end jewellery
Jewellery is something of a weird industry. WalletHub reckons that jewellery has the largest discounts of any product type, and by quite a wide margin – on average it was reduced by 65%. However, this is mostly the cheap jewellery sold by massive retailers and department stores like JCPenney and Macy’s. If you’re looking for something more high-end, Black Friday is not the time to buy it.
Expensive jewellery is one of the worst Black Friday deals, as it tends to be cheapest during the summer months. It’s also worth keeping an eye on expensive jewellery prices in the lead-up to US festival Thanksgiving: are they being artificially increased, so that a 50% discount is actually the same as what you’d normally pay? If you’re thinking of buying something special for your loved one, it’s probably best not to do it in November.
Winter clothes
Clothing generally is cheaper on Cyber Monday than on Black Friday, so if you’re buying wearable items of any sort then it’s worth leaving your shopping until after the weekend. This goes double for cold-weather clothes designed to keep you warm: leave those much longer.
November is before the worst of the winter cold comes, so jackets and boots will still be in high demand. It doesn’t make sense for retailers to offer discounts when they could just keep them at normal prices and turn more profit. The big sales will be after New Year , when shops clear out old stock to make room for new products.
Products from the HP store
HP are one of the most miserly of all stores surveyed by WalletHub. They have an average of 28.5% discounts on their products – far less than the average of 39%, and lower than the average savings on consumer electronics (38%).
If you’re in the market for a new printer or computer monitor, other retailers have much better offers. Fred Meyers supermarkets in America have an average of 55% off their electronic products, while more international stores like Office Depot and Staples both offer sales of over 50%.
Samsung’s second-hand Note 3
One of the product stories really making the rounds this week is Samsung’s refurbished Note 3 handset. The Note 3 came out in 2013, making it passé by smart phone standards already: it can’t even run the new Android 7.0 operating system, instead being stuck at 5.0. But the most startling thing is its price: $249, and boasting about a 50% discount.
The phone is pre-owned and refurbished, but it’s worth nothing like the $500 Samsung is supposedly valuing it at. The advert’s demographic is unclear, but it seems designed to lure in people looking for a new phone who don’t necessarily understand the nuances of the market. For a similar £250 sum, you could buy a new 2016 smartphone – one that can actually run an up-to-date version of its operating system!
Unbranded electronics
Sometimes, deals can look too good to be true. One example of this is when amazing prices and discounts are listed, but their credentials aren’t. Electronics which are on sale without a brand implies that they are a poor quality, and thus not worth the (even minimal) spend.
Some examples of this are 32-inch LED TVs being listed for $69.99 , or a Blu-ray Disc Player selling for $49.99. Both of these are suspicious – bad TVs can be truly appalling especially over large sizes, while many top-range Blu-ray players are already around that price regardless.
Original Reindeer Vehicle Costume with Jingle Bells
Even you’re really stuck for a Christmas present for office Secret Santa, we still wouldn’t recommend this. It’s a pair of antlers and a red nose to stick onto your car, making it look like you’re driving around in a very boxy, very-much-still-a-car reindeer.
The product itself might be a joke, but so’s the discount – there’s only 37% off. For something this tacky, we’d be expecting reductions of at least 50% or more.
No matter what you’re looking for this weekend, make sure to avoid the worst Black Friday sales. Instead, stick to brands you know and trust – like Bedstar, for quality beds that don’t skimp on quality.