As H&G's home tech editor and an eCommerce journalist of three years, I've covered all there is to know about getting the most bank for your buck during major sale events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
During I've learned some simple but very effective tricks to make sure I'm finding the best deals, quickly, every time. Amidst the Black Friday rush, you'll find brands and retailers flashing exciting deals with new, low prices on products you've never heard of. To cut through the noise and to make sure you're only shopping for genuinely good deals, here are four simple tips to get it right.
Follow these steps when you're shopping for the best Black Friday home deals to find the lowest prices on goods you actually want.
1. Shop online
Gone are the days where shoppers would rush into stores as soon as they're open. While it might seem more exciting to be able to get hands-on with the products you're buying, you're almost certainly going to be seeing a lesser selection of goods and offers.
In-store you're limited to each retailer's pricing and stock. Online, you can browse the same product across countless stores to find the best price, and you'll have plenty more choice when shopping around.
2. Do your research first
If you're looking for something specific – say, for example, a Black Friday air fryer deal – research the exact model or models you want before the sales start. When the deals start landing and products start selling out, you don't want to slow yourself down by comparing which reduced air fryer is the right one for you.
Also, Black Friday sales are notorious for flashy, 'bigger-than-ever' deals that draw you in with their huge savings. While these might be great for casual shoppers, in my experience they're often older models that people wouldn't have usually bought, or exaggerated discounts, where retailers raise the prices beforehand so that the discount looks bigger on the day.
To do proper research, read reviews from publications rather than online user reviews, as it's not always easy to know whether they're genuine or not. We've reviewed hundreds of products at Homes & Gardens, including the best air fryers, vacuum cleaners, coffee makers and pizza ovens.
Once you know what you're looking for, you can ignore the noise and go straight to where your product is the cheapest, leading to my next point...
3. Use price comparison tools
I use a few tools to make sure I'm only providing the absolute best deals to our readers: Google Shopping, Honey, and CamelCamelCamel.
Once you know what product you're looking to buy, search for it on Google Shopping. Rather than visiting each online retailer to find where it's cheapest, Google Shopping will display them all side-by-side. It's a quick and easy way to find the lowest price.
Honey works similarly. You can install it as an extension on your browser so that, whenever you're on a product page, it'll automatically detect whether it's cheaper elsewhere, and will occasionally show any available promo codes for even further discounts. Honey will also show price history for a product up to the past 120 days, an incredibly helpful feature for finding out whether the deal is a genuinely good price or an exaggerated discount.
Google Shopping and Honey won't always display the same selection of retailers, so I recommend consulting both to make sure nothing's missed.
And finally, if you're shopping on Amazon, use CamelCamelCamel to get detailed insight into the product you're buying. Unlike Honey, Camel will display price history from the moment the product was launched on the site, so you're able to know whether it's the lowest price ever.
4. Utilize subscriber promos
If you've never shopped at an online store before, chances are they'll have an option to subscribe to their email newsletter with an incentive like: '10% off your first order.' Make the most of this. You can always unsubscribe immediately after (which I recommend to keep your emails tidier), or you can stay subscribed for early access to any future deals or new releases.
Next, browse our editors' handpicked selection of the best home deals in the Black Friday sales:
