Get a Jump on Holiday Shopping with These Black Friday Shopping Tips

Did you know that holiday shoppers last year increased their online gift-buying by nearly 20% over the year before? The 2020 holiday shopping season looks likely to beat that number as the novel coronavirus forces retailers to stop depending upon elbow-to-elbow crowds in the brick-and-mortar stores.

Shopping online will be more competitive than ever, which is good news for bargain hunters. Here are some Black Friday shopping tips to help you get the most out of your holiday purchases.

When Does Black Friday Shopping Start?

As ordering from websites has gained popularity, Black Friday shopping deals really aren’t limited to in-person shopping or to that single day of discounts. In fact, the number one Black Friday shopping tip from Consumer Reports is to shop early because the deals are out there right now.

Both Walmart and Target are among the retail outlets holding daily specials every day from Nov. 1 through Black Friday. Keen competition for every dollar means better deals are being seen a lot sooner than in previous years.

If you wait until the last minute to save a couple of more bucks, you may end up not receiving the item at all, especially if it is a technological or electronic gift, which may be in short supply. Certain brand-name electronics are already advertised at up to 50% off, which is a good deal any time of the year.

Money-Saving Black Friday Shopping Tips

Back in the old days, retailers built excitement for Black Friday shopping deals by advertising early doorbuster deals, such as a $500 television for only $100 for the first 20 shoppers through their door starting at 6 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving. Competitive consumers would even camp out to wait in line for the opportunity to snag a screaming deal.

This year, expect fewer of those in-store deals and lots more bargains online. Retailers don’t want to create a coronavirus super-spreader event by drawing big crowds to their stores, so they’ll be offering more online deals to keep customers safer.

To know for sure whether or not the item you’re seeing on sale is a good deal, you need to know the price history of the product. Instead of trying to keep tabs on sales, you may wish to use a phone app that gives you Black Friday shopping tips. Several apps offer ways to seek out deals at your favorite stores and some of them even help you budget your holiday gift-buying:

• ShopSavvy (iTunes, Android) uses your location to help you find coupons that apply at stores in your area and alerts you to news on deals you find most interesting. It includes a bar codes scanner that lets you see prices on a specific item found at several different retail stores.
• Rakuten (iTunes, Android) not only tells you about pricing and coupons — it also offers you cash back on purchases from thousands of merchants.
• Price Cruncher (Android only) crunches numbers to find new ways to save money. It compares prices, shows you price history, finds ways you can save by buying in bulk, and much more.

In addition to these general apps, many of the retailers you shop from publish their own apps that offer coupons and product information.

To get the same shopping edge on your laptop or desktop, add a price-watching extension to your web browser. CamelCamelCamel keeps track of deals on Amazon, and Honey watches prices on over 30,000 websites.

Some aggregator websites like blackfriday.com research and collect deals found throughout all the major retailers and helps narrow down the best of thousands of different sales. Blackfriday.com will scan the all the ads as they are published, and you can choose to receive an email when a special deal that interests you comes along.

Safety Tips for Black Friday Shopping

With increased online shopping comes a greater risk of online identity theft. Fortunately there’s a lot you can do to protect your online transactions (and by the way, they’re good tips to follow year-round):

• Stick to shopping from businesses you know. If you want to give a new seller a try, check the customer reviews to see what other shoppers’ experiences have been like. You can also vet a website by looking up its Better Business Bureau evaluation, which gives you an idea of how that business is likely to interact with customers.
• Before you buy online, check the website’s URL. If it doesn’t match the name of the company, it might be a scam. Also, websites that are more secure will have a URL that starts with “https,” not just “http.” The “s” tells you the website uses an extra layer of security.
• Make your purchase through a third-party payment system, like PayPal, that qualifies the purchase for buyer protection.
• Before you open a promotional email, check the sender’s address. Make sure it matches the company it’s supposed to be coming from. If you’re at all uncertain, don’t click on any links in the email and don’t download any attachments. Legitimate businesses will ask you for credit card information only through a secure form — not via email.
• Watch out for scams on social media. Like email scams, messages you get on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the like may lead you to bogus websites or ask you to reveal sensitive information. Don’t give away your logins or passwords to anyone who asks for them!

Only apps and retailers that you provide express written consent are allowed to send text messages to your cell phone. As with emails, some of the spam texts you receive could be scams disguised as coupons. Don’t tap any links in a text message if you’re not certain it’s safe.

Even legitimate promotional text messages have to comply with federal telemarketing laws. If you receive unsolicited advertisements from any retailers who send such marketing texts en masse, such businesses could be held responsible for violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Holidays are no excuse for anyone, including retailers, to break the law.

Once the shopping’s done, hang on to your receipts — they might be worth money someday. Even if you don’t think you’ll need to return the purchase, you may need those receipts months or years from now to make a claim in a class action settlement. Many settlement administrators require copies of a receipt as proof of purchase. And while some settlements don’t require proof of purchase, they often pay out more to claimants who can provide a copy of their receipt.

Moreover, it’s a good idea to look over every receipt to make sure the retailer followed the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACTA) by printing no more than the last four digits of your card number on the receipt. Retailers who print a different combination of card digits and/or the expiration date of the card can be held accountable for FACTA violations through class action lawsuits.

Read more articles from Top Class Actions’ Countdown to the Holidays!