While Black Friday deals tend to start earlier than the actual day, the official start of this year’s Cyber Weekend is Friday, November 29. This date shifts every year as it’s the Friday following Thanksgiving in the US. We’ve been seeing retailers start their Black Friday sales about two week early in the last couple of years, and it wouldn’t surprise us at all if they come a little earlier this year. So you should start keeping an eye out for discounts from around November 15. That said, we’re likely to see the best offers during the actual four-day Black Friday weekend itself, which also includes Cyber Monday, which this year is on December 2.
Good question. With a move to the competitive arena of online sales, we’re going to be seeing more retailers on the web than ever, and with Amazon leading the charge, there’s going to be some fierce price wars. That will likely work in your favour, with plenty of retailers vying for the lowest price on the latest gadgets. In fact, it would be fair to assume that Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days sale is a prelude to the retail giant’s Black Friday campaign, and can be considered ‘early’ deals for the big sale event to come in November. We expect other retailers to start early too, although they will likely wait till early or mid November to kick off their Black Friday offers. These deals and discounts typically change during the run up to the actual Cyber Weekend sale, but if stocks are limited, you might want to consider picking up the deal if the price looks good to you. The best offers will be during the actual 4-day Cyber Weekend sale between November 29 and December 2. In Australia, most retailers end their sale on Cyber Monday (December 2 this year), but there are always some who extend the sale for at least a week.
Most online retailers offer Black Friday deals, but it’s our job to sort through all the offers to find the very best bargains from the bunch. You’ll typically find the best deals on tech from big-name retailers like Amazon, eBay, JB Hi-Fi, Myer, The Good Guys and Bing Lee leading the pack. Amazon, of course, is a Black Friday favourite, not only because of the record-low prices seen during big sales, but because it offers discounts on a wide variety of categories. So whether you’re looking for tech items like laptops or AirPods, or searching for discounts on clothing, kitchen appliances, or toys, Amazon is likely to offer Black Friday deals on the product you’re after. Other retailers that offer impressive Black Friday sales include eBay Australia, JB Hi-Fi, Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft, Rebel Sport, The Gamesmen, Target, The Iconic, just to name a few. It can be overwhelming with so many retailers and promotions, but that’s where our deal expertise comes in. We go through every retailer to pick out the very best Black Friday deals – particularly in the electronics and tech space – so you can be sure you’re getting the lowest price available. We also keep a live list of the best Black Friday sales from all the top online retailers, so you can easily jump to the offer you want.
In Australia, we typically see average discounts of about 25% to 30% on various items during Black Friday sales. However, there are bigger discounts to be had. Laptops, for example, can go down all the way to 40% off on average, while personal audio – like Bluetooth headphones and speakers – average around 27% off. Of course, there are items that drop well below the half-price mark too. Take Garmin’s multi-sport watches as an example – when shopping on Amazon, you could get them for up to 55% off sometimes. Each category of tech sees a different discount at different retailers, but rest assured they’ll all by vying for your attention, so expect some seriously good offers.
The term ‘Black Friday’ has two meanings in Australia and they butt heads and cause some controversy. To older Aussies, it refers to the day 71 people in Victoria tragically lost their lives in destructive bushfires in 1939. However, these days Black Friday is associated with the mega shopping event held annually in November and that’s what we’re discussing here. But how did such a sale event come to be? Below is a quick history lesson.
The first known mention of Black Friday related to this shopping experience was in November 1951, when the journal Factory Management and Maintenance used it to describe people calling in sick the day after Thanksgiving so they could have an extra day off work. At the same time, US police were using the phrases ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Black Saturday’ to describe the horrendous traffic that crowded the streets at the beginning of the pre-Christmas shopping season. In 1961 there was a movement from the local governments to change the shopping season to “Big Friday” and “Big Saturday”, but it clearly never caught on, and the notion that it was the time when retailers moved ‘back into the black’ was seen far later and clearly an attempt to bring positivity to the term.
While we didn’t have a proper Black Friday sale in November till about 2011, it still took a few years more for it to gain traction. In 2013, Apple held a Black Friday in Australia, becoming one of the first big tech companies to help make it a popular sale. By 2017 there was no turning back – Black Friday was well established and so popular that shoppers knew to wait till November to spend on deeply discounted items.
While the Black Friday sale event is typically over four days that starts on the Friday after Thanksgiving in the US and ends on the following Monday (called Cyber Monday), it is no longer just a four-day sale. Over the last few years, Aussie retailers have started their Black Friday campaign a week or two before the actual date. However, the offers tend to change over this time and the best deals are usually over the actual Black Friday four-day weekend.
There was a time, especially in the US, when Black Friday meant physically going to a brick-and-mortar store to shop, mostly to shake off the turkey sweats, while Cyber Monday was exclusively for online deals. Now, however, there’s barely any difference since most deals offered through the November sale period are available online. As an online sale, Cyber Monday is obviously a more recent development, coming after the advent of the internet and e-commerce. It traditionally marks the point when people realised they needed to get a wriggle on and start buying Christmas presents. Another point of difference that’s more valid in the US than anywhere else is that Black Friday was traditionally more about electronics and other high-ticket items, while Cyber Monday was more about lifestyle goods. Nowadays, though, they’re both just one big smooshed-together shopping spree over an entire week and the actual 4-day sale is typically called Cyber Weekend in Australia.
Considering most retailers offer excellent discounts during Black Friday, your chance of getting the best price on a specific item increases significantly. Retailers will try and price match to help you get the best bargain. So Black Friday is most definitely worth waiting for. That said, Amazon is known to offer great prices on plenty of tech throughout the year, even outside of major sales like Prime Day, so it helps to keep an eye on its dedicated deals page, but even Amazon tries to outdo itself during Black Friday.
Getting the best Black Friday deals often comes down to how much research you do ahead of the event. Use the time you have in the lead up to the event to make sure you know exactly what you want to get out of the sale. That means going beyond finding a TV brand or laptop model that suits you, but looking at what features and specs you will need to fit into your budget. Double check previous sales to see if your shopping list matches prices that have been seen before so that you stay realistic during this step.
In previous years, we’d usually say that you would want to wait until as close to Black Friday as possible before making a purchase in order to get the best price. The last two years have completely changed our advice, though. We’ve seen that when retailers start their sales from early or mid November, the prices on offer are rarely beaten on Black Friday. There may be a small spike in deals during the week leading up to Black Friday itself, but many of the offers you see in the weeks prior are actually as good as they are going to get. So, with that in mind, if you have a specific product you’re looking out for this year, you should really consider buying it as soon as that first deal becomes available. This is especially true if it’s a big-ticket item like a games console, 4K TV or tablet. We’ve seen these haven’t been reduced any further on Black Friday and could also suffer from stock issues if they are particularly popular. So, you don’t want to miss out on something entirely, we strongly suggest buying early.
If you’ve been shopping during November over the last few years, you’ll know that Black Friday sales are now an established event on the Aussie shopping calendar. Not only are Black Friday deals real, you’ll be able to shop both in store and online. Generally speaking, there are two types of deals offered during Black Friday. The first has been pre-agreed between brands/retailers and suppliers, so they’re not as off-the-cuff as you might expect. The other is sudden price drops, whether that’s an algorithm working out the best way to attract users to buy (as brands like Amazon often will) or just the big names price-matching one another. As with any sales, you’ll see a mix of genuine bargains, discounted end-of-line stock and mysterious things found in the back of a warehouse somewhere.
Sometimes, yes. While brands themselves won’t typically offer cashback on Black Friday deals, your debit card or credit card may. It’s definitely worth looking into – not just for Black Friday 2024 but for any online shopping – when you’ll be spending money online.
Yes. In Australia, anything you buy from a company online is covered by a wealth of consumer protection legislation, which gives you the same rights as with any other online purchase. Unfortunately, Black Friday brings out the scammers as well as the sellers. So be wary of unsolicited emails or links to deals on social media, no matter how legitimate they look: anything asking for card or login details may be a scam. Phishing sites do big business on Black Friday, so be extra suspicious – and if you’re on a PC, make sure your security software is up to date. Many security suites automatically block known scam sites.
