Black Friday and Cyber Monday are around the corner. Every major company and retailer will offer a host of discounts. It’s hard to track them all, so these excellent curators and aggregators help you find the best ones and not miss out on a good deal.
Some of these websites only work with online retailers, while others do a good job of mixing online and offline sales. In fact, a lot of the best deals won’t be online. You’ll find them listed in newspapers and flyers, but thankfully there are websites that track those too.
Remember, just because it’s discounted on Black Friday doesn’t mean it’s a particularly good deal. Retailers often play around with price tags to make discounts and sales look bigger than they are. Here are a few ways you can make sure your Black Friday deal is a massive bargain.
1. BFAds (Web): Scans of All Black Friday Ads
Don’t just check out Amazon during the shopping days. Black Friday is as big in offline retail stores. These retail stores usually advertise through newspapers and flyers. BFAds is a collection of scans of all of these.
You’ll be surprised by how many great deals aren’t advertised online, mainly because these retailers want you coming to their store. Once you’re already in the store, you’re bound to buy a few more things, right?
You can shop BFAds by stores and brands, check today’s hot deals, check all ad scans, or skip right over to advertised Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. A “recent activity” board lists the newest ad scans, all of which are useful for Black Friday.
2. The Black Friday (Web): Overwhelmed? Try This Deals Collector
Everyone knows BlackFriday.com is one of the must-visit sites during the shopping days. But there’s another similar-sounding website you shouldn’t miss. TheBlackFriday.com is one of the most comprehensive deal aggregators and is surprisingly easy to browse. In fact, if you’re overwhelmed by the many Black Friday deals collectors, you should try this one.
Each brand or retail outlet is its own separate tile. Categories include the latest deals, popular stores, and specialty toys and holiday catalogs. These toy and holiday catalogs can help you save big bucks if you plan your Christmas shopping in advance.
Click any brand or store, and like BFAds, The Black Friday includes scans of flyers and newspaper advertisements. Right below that are links to items on sale on the website of that store. It’s a great combination to find exactly what you’re looking for while shopping from your favorite stores.
And if you’re ready to buy, check the coupons and live deals too. There are often a few limited-time bargains that you don’t want to miss out on.
3. Clark Deals (Web): Editor-Picked Money Savers
Personal finance expert and author Clark Howard is known for recommending sound money-saving decisions to consumers. Clark Deals is a spin-off website where the team from Clark.com recommends its favorite deals.
The entire process is editor-picked, so you are assured to get good deals and not a mass curation of every tiny or fake discount that a retailer wants to push. That’s the main advantage of this consumer-oriented website.
The website also has a special “Black Friday Now!” section, where it monitors prices of different items and tells you when they reach their Black Friday pricing. After all, why should you wait till Black Friday for your shopping if you can get it as cheap right now?
Along with all that, there are the usual categories to browse, find a store or brand’s best deals and a few recommendations of the items you should consider buying.
4. Love The Sales (Web): Best for Clothes Shopping on Black Friday
Love The Sales is an aggregator of clothing items that have gone on sale, with over 850 retail partners. So instead of going to each store, you can check all the sales in one place.
The website is mainly about shopping for clothes, although there are a few tech products you can get too. Shop by categories for women, men, bags, kids, home, and activewear, each of which has sub-categories and filters to further refine your search. Once you find something you like, click to go to that store, and Love The Sales can make a commission on the referral.
Love The Sales has a special “Black Friday mode,” which is a fancier name for a watchlist. Add items you like to a shortlist, and Love The Sales will monitor them for price drops during Black Friday. It’s a handy way to get what you want at the best price possible.
5. Dealspotr and r/BlackFriday (Web): Crowd-Sourced Deals Across Brands
There are so many deals popping up during Black Friday that it’s hard to keep track of them. Often, you are relying on recommendations from websites. But you ever get the feeling they are all talking about the same deals?
A good way to break out of the bubble is to find deals that other regular people like you are recommending. SlickDeals is one of the biggest online communities and among the best sites to find daily deals. Two others you can consider are Dealspotr and Reddit’s BlackFriday forum.
Dealspotr makes it easy to find deals on brands you like. It asks you to sign up by choosing three or more brands and will track any deals about them vigorously. Dealspotr is community-based, so regular people are submitting bargains they find.
Similarly, the r/BlackFriday subreddit is thriving at this time of the year. It’s especially good at telling you when pre-sales and early events start. There’s also a dedicated thread to find small business owners and support them.
MakeUseOf’s Best Black Friday 2019 Deals
If you’re planning to buy electronics this Black Friday, our team has you covered. Whether it’s computers, laptops, phones, cameras, headphones, speakers, monitors, TVs, home theater systems, wearables, or home appliances, we’re tracking deals across them all.
Check our mega roundup of the best Black Friday 2019 deals to find bargains up to 50% lower than what you would normally pay.
Read the full article: 5 Black Friday Curators to Find the Best Deals for Online and Offline Shopping