Today we are giving away an Apple iPod Nano (16GB) and two $100 Gift Cards to the Store of Your Choice!
Tonight's give-away ends at 11:59:59 CST. You only need to enter the November Holiday Give-Away Contest once and you will be eligible for every daily give-away. Limit 1 entry per person.
You can find all information about the November Holiday Give-Away Contest along with the daily prize schedule and past winners on our November Holiday Give-Away Contest page.
Express is keeping it simple with 40% off everything before noon and 30% off everything after noon on Black Friday. Except, according to Express, everything does not include clearance items or gift-cards.
There will be more Black Friday guides on the way soon! If there is a specific topic or product category you would like us to write about, please write us and let us know.
BFAds T-Shirt Update and 1st Golden T-Shirt Winner
The response to our BFAds Black Friday 2010 t-shirt has been absolutely phenomenal. We received our second order from our printer earlier last week and all shirts ordered before Saturday, November 6 have been shipped out (or will be shipped out first thing tomorrow). If you ordered a shirt over the weekend, it'll be shipped out either today or tomorrow.
Due to USPS's weird pricing structure, if you ordered less than 3 shirts, your shirts will be shipped individually instead of a group. Unfortunately, this allows a small chance that your entire order may not be received on the same day. If you only receive part of your order and nothing else arrives within the next two days, please do not hesitate to contact us.
We have spoken with our printer and the absolute last day to purchase a shirt is this Sunday, November 14, to ensure delivery before Thanksgiving. Until then, you can order a BFAds 2010 t-shirt for $10 shipped (+$2 for 2XL and 3XL sizes) on our Order a T-Shirt page.
We've also received our first response from a Golden T-Shirt Winner. Congratulations to Laura of Dripping Springs, TX on winning a Golden T-Shirt and a $100 Gift-Card to Target!
Everyone who purchases a BFAds Black Friday 2010 shirt automatically qualifies to win a Golden T-Shirt! And remember all November profits from the shirt sales (we are selling very near cost), and an additional $1/shirt for the first 1000 shirts in November, are donated to the American Diabetes Association.
Tonight's give-away ends at 11:59:59 CST. You only need to enter the November Holiday Give-Away Contest once and you will be eligible for every daily give-away. Limit 1 entry per person.
You can find all information about the November Holiday Give-Away Contest along with the daily prize schedule and past winners on our November Holiday Give-Away Contest page.
Although not quite as early as Kohl's, Macy's sale starts bright and early at 4am on Black Friday. The sale lasts 4am-1pm on Friday, with Macy's repeating the sale again from 8am-1pm on Saturday, November 27.
The ad primarily consists of apparel, jewelry, home items and holiday items along with special "extra 20% off" on a wide variety of clothing items. Macy's is also offering a $10 off Your Purchase of $25 or More Coupon on all sale and clearance apparel (and select home items)!
Much like Walgreens, the CVS sale starts Thanksgiving Thursday at 9am and last all day Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Along with the standard convenience store personal care, Holiday and Food items, CVS is also trying their hand at some budget-oriented consumer electronics including the Craig 7" LCD TV/DVD Player for $78.88 and Sylvania 7" Netbook for $94.88.
The last page of the ad consists completely of "Free after Extra Bucks" items. Extra bucks are, essentially, gift-certificates that print out with your receipt at the register; which are good towards future purchases at CVS. The items themselves aren't "free," but you get their worth back in gift-certificates.
The sale starts Thanksgiving Thursday at 9am and lasts through Saturday, November 27. The items are pretty typical for what you'd expect from a convenience store: mostly personal care, food and holiday items, with a couple electronics thrown in.
Two pages of the advertisement feature items that qualify for "Jingle Cash," which are gift certificates that can be used towards future purchases.
Throwing caution into the wind, Kohl's is beginning their sale dark and early at 3am on Black Friday. The sale contains over 400 earlybird specials, which are only valid on Black Friday from 3am-11am. After the earlybird hours, most of the items carryover to the rest of the Friday/Saturday sale at a slightly more expensive price.
For example, take this Black and Decker Countertop Toaster Oven. It's earlybird price is $49.99 (which includes a $10 rebate). After the earlybird hours, the price jumps to the "sale price" of $59.99. After the Friday/Saturday sale, the price will most likely go back to its normal retail price of $99.99.
This year, Sears Family and Friends Sale is in-store, Sunday, November 14th from 6PM to 9PM . The exception is electronics, those prices are good the entire day.
Discounts available on Family and Friends night include:
Typically, Sears pairs an extravagant online sale with the in-store specials. Once we have more details about the online Family and Friends sale, we will be sure to share.
Amazon has stayed mum on any plans to compete in this weekend's sales against Walmart and BestBuy, so right now it's a two pony race; although Amazon could very well surprise us with their Goldbox Sale tomorrow.
EDIT: Amazon's Gold Box sales are covered in our Overview of the Friday and Saturday Sales news post. The sale includes a Vizio 26" TV for $198.99 (to rival Walmart), a Compaq Presario CQ62-210US for $279.99 (to rival both Walmart and BestBuy) and a PlayStation 3 320GB Console w/ Move Bundle and $50 Gift-Card for $399 (to rival Walmart). We've updated our recommendations accordingly below.
For those confused about the meaning of this post, the following sales will be going on this weekend:
In this post, we will be directly comparing the sales of BestBuy and Walmart. If we get a sneak peak of Amazon's items, weâll update the post to include them.
On the surface, these look like almost the same computer. The primary difference is BestBuy's eMachine's laptop comes with a dedicated ATi Radeon HD 4250 Graphics Card and a HDMI (w/ HDCP Support) output for multimedia connectivity. Walmart's Compaq only has Intel Integrated Graphics, which means that some of your system's memory (2GB) will be allocated for graphics processing.
Neither laptop is going to be a suitable for extended portable use (especially the eMachine, which comes with a low-capacity 4-cell battery), and with each laptop weighing between 6-8 lbs, you could probably cancel your gym membership if you plan on lugging either around with any consistency.
The graphics card and HDMI difference aren't huge deals, but given everything else, the better purchase is BestBuy's eMachine for $279.99. Both would make adequate entry-level laptop for someone in need, but if you have a little wiggle room in your budget, it might be worth your while to wait a little bit longer.
BestBuy has listed three different Dynex 32" models (DX-32L150A11, DX-32L151A11 and DX-32L152A11) and model will probably vary by store. The 152 model is apparently only for-sale in Canada. The differences between the 150 and 151 model is that the 150 has more inputs, which I've summarized below:
This would make the 150 model more sought after; luckily, it appears to also be the most prominent model provided. If given the choice between the 150 and 151, choose the 150.
While all of these HDTVs are 720p, unless you plan on sitting less than 6-feet away from the TV, you won't notice a difference from a 1080p set.
For a 26" 720p LED-lit LCD HDTV, we don't think we're going to see a price much lower than $200 anytime soon, including Black Friday. The 26" Vizio is the best TV deal of the weekend sales.
For the 32" size, the Dynex 32L150A11 was retailing for $300 until October 24 when it dropped down to $279.99. At $259.99 it's now dropped another $20 and it probably won't get much cheaper. The Vizio E320VL, however, is usually sold at a much higher price ($350 shipped at Amazon) and thus the discount on the Vizio is greater (both in absolute and relative terms) than the Dynex.
It's still a $40 difference though, and we don't think there is $40 between the two TVs, and would recommend the Dynex over the Vizio only because of the price-difference. If both were at the same price-point, it'd be a no-contest for the Vizio.
Closing Notes
A lot of people, including us, glanced over the Disney Guilty Party Wii video-game on sale for $20 (from $40) in Best Buy's Shop Early, Save Big Sale. Guilty Party was recently released this past August and has received very positive reviews (IGN, Joystiq); being able to pick it up for $20 is a steal.
The $50 iTunes card for $35 is a really good deal, especially if you know someone who purchases a lot of music through iTunes.
And the Sony PlayStation 3 Console w/ Move Bundle and $50 Gift Card for $399 wasn't anywhere near as hot as we originally thought it was. Last year's Xbox 360 bundle came with a $100 gift-card, in comparison, this deal is lukewarm, at best: we expect to see better deals on video-game console bundles in the sales leading up to and during Black Friday.
Best Buy's Shop Early, Save Big Friday-Saturday Sale
We hinted earlier about the possibility of more retailers joining the weekend sale fray, which is exactly what Best Buy is doing with their Shop Early, Save Big Sale starting this Friday, November 5 and lasting through Saturday, Nov 6.
I know a lot of people are saying, "a sale on Friday? But I have to work!" We agree and think it's an interesting move on Best Buy's part, but it appears they will be holding some stock for Saturday, so people unable to attend the Friday sale will still have a chance for all the items.
We'll see if Amazon (or any other retailer) plans on jumping into the mix. If they do, we'll be sure to keep you updated. We will also have a post later today outlining all of the sales going on and the best deals available, so be sure to check back again later in the day!
The first four pages of the advertisement scan are Bass Pro Shop's Black Friday early bird sales (these items are marked with an early bird icon in the advertisement listings) which are only good on Black Friday from 6-11am.
Like the Gander Mountain sale, most of the items featured are apparel, fishing gear and hunting gear, with some electronics and home items mixed in.
This is the second Black Friday ad to come out today and we expect a few more to appear in the next couple days; so stay tuned!
