By the time you read this, you’ll have missed at least a week’s worth of early Black Friday deals.
In fact, 1 out of 4 shoppers plans to have their holiday shopping done before Nov. 28, according to a report by RetailMeNot’s Shoppers Trend Report.
Stores are doing everything to get your business and apparently making Black Friday last as long as possible.
But are these so-called Black Friday sales really offering good deals?
There are several apps and sites to help you make sure you are getting the best information possible before you make that purchase.
SITES
The Camelizer — Amazon is notorious for changing product prices, sometimes several times a day. The Camelizer gives you a history of how a product’s price has changed over time. Either paste the product page’s URL into or add the browser plugin, which puts a button at the top right of the browser. When looking at a product on Amazon, punch the button, and a price-change chart pops up. Camelizers are also available for BestBuy.com and NewEgg.com.
— Similar to the Camelizer, Nifti also offers a price history for dozens and dozens of online stores, including Cabela’s, Sephora and ThinkGeek. But the key is that tracking begins when a user submits a product. If the price isn’t right yet, you can set an alert, and Nifti will tell you when the price drops.
— Known for its exhaustive list of coupons categorized by retailer, this deals site is successful because of its active users, who submit coupon codes and rate the deals. The site itself shows when the last time the code was successful and verified (typically within the last 24 hours) and how many people used it. Before you buy something online, visit this site to see if any coupons or other discounts are available.
InvisibleHand — Find out while shopping if cheaper prices exist online with a browser extension, at When you pull up a product, a bar at the top of the page indicates whether Invisible Hand found other retailers selling the same thing. It doesn’t work with all sites, plus it’s not programmed to know Black Friday deals. But it could be handy if you’re intent on buying a product for the best price.
APPS
— Brad Wilson’s stays on top of good deals year round but steps it up during the holidays, getting the latest Black Friday ads on its blackfriday.bradsdeals.com website and mobile app. His team of editors posts ad scans, viewable on a phone. They also post news items to alert users when a store “secretly” has a sale eight days before Black Friday.
— FatWallet.com is full of deals if you don’t mind scouring message boards. Its app lets you search by product to find out who has it on sale and for how much. Lego Movie? Sam’s Club will have the Blu-ray for $8.98, though for 2 cents more at Target, you also get a Lego .
— This comes in handy after you’ve made a purchase. If you link it to an e-mail, Slice tracks whether the item you just purchased goes on sale a few days later. And it alerts you and offers a pre-written e-mail (or phone number) to send to the retailer requesting the price difference. It also has a recall alert.
