Grand Prize Give-Away: HP and Dell Laptops, $500 Gift Card
It is finally Black Friday! We are excited to announce the final prizes for our November give-away contest. The prizes are two absolutely beastly laptops and are generously sponsored by HP and Dell. In addition to the laptops, BFAds is giving away one $500 Gift Card.
Dell Studio 17 Laptop with Quad Core Processor
HP Pavilion dv8t Laptop with Quad Core Processor
$500 Gift Card
To be eligible to win these prizes, you just need to fill out this simple contest entry form. You only need to enter the contest once and you will be eligible for all daily give-aways. If you have already entered, there is no need to enter again.
Good Luck and Thanks for Visiting and Tell Your Friends!
Dynex 32" 720p 60Hz LCD HDTV for $300 Update: No more free shipping, now costs $30-40 to ship. Normally retails for $380, Best Buy in-store only guarantees a minimum of 10 per store!
These are currently the only two Best Buy Black Friday door-busters online, although if you check out their Best Buy Doorbusters 2009 page, you can see that many other items are planned to be sold online in the very near future (sole exception seems to be the $200 HP laptop).
We expect a lot more Best Buy Black Friday items to become available for sale online at their Black Friday prices starting sometime later tonight/early tomorrow. All of this information is available in our Online Black Friday Sales Tracker news post!
The XL 330S features a touch-screen 4.3" screen with 1GB of flash memory, text-to-speech capabilities and TeleAtlas pre-loaded maps of the United States and Canada. The XL 330S is not featured in any Black Friday advertisements this year, but the $99 price-tag is on par with the door-buster pricing of the text-to-speech GPS devices.
It took awhile, but we now have Black Friday Buying Guides for eight of our most popular product categories! We've received lots of emails asking for advice in purchasing everything from digital cameras to laptops to washing machine and dryer sets, so hopefully these guides make your Black Friday research a bit easier. You can view all of our fourteen 2009 articles and buying guides by clicking on the buying guides link in the left navigation (below online deals).
Select the J28 camera, 2GB SD Card and one of the cases (either red or blue)
Hit Add to Cart
Click Proceed to Checkout
Select FREE Super Saver Shipping for Free Shipping
Total should be $79.99 after $20.75 promotional savings (shows up on the last screen before you place your order).
The Fujifilm FinePix J28 features a 3x Optical Zoom, 2.7" LCD and automatic face detection with red eye removal! Definitely a bargain for those who are in the market for a $100 or less digital camera and don't want to fight the Black Friday crowds! Additionally, check out our just posted Digital Camera Buying Guide for our picks of the top digital cameras on sale this Black Friday!
Nintendo DSi Brain Age Bundle Pre-Order for $154.91
Amazon currently has the White Nintendo DSi Brain Age Bundle available for pre-order for $154.91 shipped. Unfortunately, the Metallic Blue Mario bundle is not available for $154.91 anymore. The expected ship date is November 27th and this purchase qualifies for Amazon's pre-order price guarantee: "if the Amazon.com price decreases between your order time and the end of the day of the release date, you'll receive the lowest price."
The DSi Bundle comes with 5 pre-installed titles, they are:
Brain Age Express: Sudoku
Brain Age Express: Arts & Letters
Brain Age Express: Math
Photo Clock
Clubhouse Games Express: Card Classics
This deal compares favorably with the Black Friday sales of Kmart ($169.99 w/ $25 GC) and Best Buy ($169.99 w / $20 GC). When you consider that Amazon only charges sales tax in five states (KS, KY, ND, NY and WA) and assume that the national sales tax rate is around 6.5%, it brings the total price (including gift-card deduction) of the Kmart deal to $156.05 and the Best Buy deal to $161.05. Not bad for a deal you don't have to leave your computer for!
Amazon is continuing with their Black Friday Deals Week Sale with special sales on Movies & TV Shows. Amazon is staggering different deals throughout the day, with some of the better ones being completely unannounced (e.g. the Nintendo DS for $100 yesterday), so we highly recommend bookmarking both of these links and checking them often to stay current on the newest Amazon sale.
Now for the big news, we think we may finally have some good leads on what will be available online during the Best Buy and Walmart Black Friday sales. For Best Buy, in addition to the items listed in the Best Buy's Secret Door-Busters Sale (all of which we believe will be available online with the sole exception of the $200 HP laptop), Best Buy has put almost every sale item in their Black Friday advertisement online. Usually when a retailer creates an online page for an item, it means that they plan on offering the item for sale online. This is speculation, but considering most of these new pages have coming soon buttons makes us believe that the majority of the Best Buy Black Friday advertisement will be available online.
As for Walmart, if you go to this page and enter your zip code, you can see the full 32-page Walmart Black Friday advertisement. If you click on the items in the ad, a window will pop up and in the footer say either, "This item will be available in stores and online beginning Friday, November 27th" or "This item will only be available in stores beginning Friday, November 27."
The good news? All noteworthy electronics (the $250 32" LCD, $78 Blu-ray Player, $98 DS Lite, $298 HP Celeron Laptop, etc.) are going to be available both in stores and online! The only big item that is going to be in-store only is the Emerson 42" Plasma HDTV for $448. The $4 kitchen appliances (hand-mixer, slow cooker, mini chopper), and about half of the toys, clothing and tools are also in-store only.
There are some discrepancies in the advertisement, as on page 26, the $249 Nintendo Wii Bundle, $498 Acer 17.3" Laptop and $688 RCA 46" LCD HDTV are all supposed to be "only at Walmart.com," yet when clicked on, it says they will be available in stores and online. Additionally, on page 32 (the Saturday only sale), all the items say they will be available in stores and online beginning Friday, November 27. We're pretty sure these are just tiny oversights though.
What does all this mean? That the majority of BestBuy and Walmart Black Friday sale items will be available online! Hopefully this holds true and other retailers follow suit, which means that you could very well do all your Black Friday shopping from home this year!
Although I still believe it can't be a "Black Friday" sale unless it actually occurs on Black Friday, Amazon has started their Black Friday Deals Week Sale, where they'll be putting various items on sale throughout the day.
Their first item on sale is a Balance Ball Chair for the low price of $60, so not exactly a barn-burner sale, but we fully expect the deals to get progressively better as we get closer to Black Friday. Especially after reading this, which was posted on their website before launching their Black Friday Deals Week:
"We're searching for the best Black Friday deals everywhere--including deals other stores are planning--so we can meet or beat their prices and bring them to you even earlier. These limited-supply offers will go quickly but we'll add new ones throughout the day, every day, starting Monday--so you can skip the long lines and still save a bundle."
Amazon is also having a special Black Friday Deals Week sale on Movies & TV Shows. They have a full schedule of the movie sales here, but they won't be posting the price information until 12:01am PST the day before the sale. Our suggestion is to bookmark all of these links and check them often! Amazon says that they'll be adding new sales throughout the week, so the schedule available now may very well feature plenty more items later today!
Thus, we would assume that all the other items featured on this page will be available online as Best Buy encourages you to "start shopping early at BestBuy.com on Thursday, November 26."
Additionally, if you're a Best Buy RewardZone Premier Silver Member, starting today, Monday, November 23rd from noon until midnight CST, you can take advantage of these exclusive early access to select Black Friday sale items. Rewardzone Premier Silver members are those who have spent over $2500 on their Rewardzone MasterCard.
This is only the start of what is shaping up to be an absolutely insane week. We're waiting to see if Walmart responds to BestBuy's $200 secret-sale laptop and whether or not Amazon decides to join the fray. Either way, it should be very interesting and great for the consumer! We'll have multiple updates per day, so we recommend you check back often!
If you saw the first OfficeMax Black Friday advertisement we posted back in mid-October, you may have noticed that this advertisement is drastically different. Gone are the $150 netbook and $5 snuggie (although they still have the breathalyzer) and in their place are a $380 HP laptop and a $100 22" LCD monitor.
Why the discrepancy? There are currently two theories:
That the first 4-page OfficeMax Black Friday advertisement was just a proof of concept. As noted in our original posting of the advertisement, the first advertisement was riddled with spelling and grammatical errors and contained some questionable items (snuggie, slap chop and breathalyzer) that aren't normally associated with an OfficeMax sale.
That the first 4-page OfficeMax Black Friday advertisement is their door-buster deals sale. On the top of page 15 of the new OfficeMax Black Friday advertisement, it states, "Get 4 More Pages of Black Friday Savings" when you enter your email address at OfficeMax.com. Because the new 24-page advertisement only features two-day sale items, it is possible that the original advertisement represents just their door-buster sale.
We're unsure about either theory, but think that there is a much higher chance of the original advertisement being a proof of concept rather than just the door-buster deals. The new OfficeMax advertisement has been confirmed by multiple sources, so it is definitely the real thing. Unfortunately, none of those sources mentioned anything regarding a 4-page door-buster advertisement.
UPDATE :: We've seen, albeit almost unreadable, scans of the "4 More Pages of Black Friday Savings" advertisement and it further confirms that the original OfficeMax advertisement released is not valid and was probably just a proof of concept. This is terribly disappointing because the new (and valid) advertisement isn't nearly as good as the invalid one.
Best Buy has the Samsung PN50B450 50" Plasma HDTV for $767.99 including shipping! TV is on sale for $697.99 but delivery charge is $70, bringing the total cost to $767.99 Local pick-up is not available.
Out of StockCrutchfield has the Samsung LN32B360 32" 720p LCD HDTV for $325 with free shipping when you use coupon code 3A825 during checkout
Out of StockAmazon has the Sony Bravia KDL-40V5100 40" 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV and the Sony BDP-N460 Blu-ray Disc Player for a combo price of $756 with free shipping! You need to add both items to your cart and checkout to see the $300 ($242.03 + $57.93) savings applied (combo pricing only shows up on the screen immediately prior to submitting your order)!
Some retailers are starting their Black Friday sales later tonight / early tomorrow, we'll have a post within the next couple of hours with all the details!
One thing to notice about the laptop is that, like most netbooks, it does not include an optical (CD/DVD) drive. Ultra-Portable laptops are very energy efficient and due to their low-voltage processors and LED-backlit LCD displays, they also run noticeably cooler and much longer (8 hours) than most traditional laptops. While not as powerful as most laptops that retail at this price-point, this ultra-portable's configuration should have more than enough power for the average person's computing needs.
Select in-store pickup (limited locations) to save on the $70 shipping charge (it's a flat $70 shipping charge whether you buy one or the pair). Even with the additional shipping charge, it's still a pretty good deal (especially if you purchase both, which effectively halves the shipping rate per item).
Both models have received positive reviews and the nice thing is that you don't have to buy them as a pair to get the discount (if you're buying in-store or online). There may be even more savings available if you are upgrading from a top-loading washer or dryer in the form of rebates from your utility companies (power and water). This varies by region, but the washing machine qualifies for a PG&E rebate worth up to $75.
Best Buy also has the following major appliances on sale this week:
For $50 (system cost of $280), you can upgrade to a 250GB Hard-Drive and Windows 7 operating system. (This option does not appear to be available online, but should be available in-store.)
A couple retailers will be starting to put portions of their Black Friday sales online starting tomorrow, Monday, November 23rd. We'll be posting all known information about these sales later today!
Free ship-to-store, but, unfortunately, no true free shipping. Shipping ruins the deal, so, when you checkout, make sure to select "Store Pick-Up" and select your nearest store to take advantage of these early Black Friday prices!
A lot of people are wondering whether Best Buy will be having secret "unadvertised" sales again this year and I believe the answer is yes. Unfortunately, Best Buy won't tell us anything (or even confirm/deny that they will be doing another unadvertised sale this year), so we probably won't hear anything about the deals until sometime midway through next week. One thing is for certain though, if they want to steer traffic away from Walmart and Target, they're going to need to do something between now and Black Friday.
