Black Friday

Black Friday Numbers Indicate A New Sales High, but ...

Black Friday

Episode 1649

The sales numbers are in from Black Friday. Although sales hit a new high, they were below expectations, according to Adobe. $7.4 Billion in online shopping, half of which were for smartphones. Sales of which were up 20%.

Top toy sales were for Frozen 2, LOL Surprise, and then Paw Patrol. Best selling video games FIFA, Madden 2020, and the Nintendo Switch system. Apple Airpods, Macbooks, and TVs topped the electronics list. And over $2.9 billion made on smartphones, constituting 60% of all online traffic. Leo suspects that next year, smartphones will be the #1 way to shop. 

Scott Wilkinson and the never ending sale

Scott Wilkinson

Episode 1648

Black Friday may have passed, but with Cyber Monday just two days away, Scott is back with another round of killer home theater deals. Scott says that Best Buy has been open later this weekend, and the larger TVs are very cheap ... 75" for $750!  Unbelievable deals, sure, but Scott warns that you may end up with compromised performance. If you can't really see the difference, it may not have that huge an impact, but to the educated home theater eye, once you learn what to look for, you can't unsee the flaws. So when it comes to BlackFriday deals, sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

Scott Wilkinson on Home Theater

Scott Wilkinson

Episode 1545

Over Black Friday weekend, shoppers used their mobile devices to buy over a billion dollars in products. Total retail sales for November is 38 billion dollars. Are TVs better to buy during the Super Bowl, rather than Black Friday? Scott says maybe. They are later in the product cycle and the deals are to clear out models for the new models. So TVs are a better bargain the week before the Super Bowl. But Black Friday deals are pretty good for TVs if you need one.

When should I buy a 4K TV?

LG OLED B7

Episode 1483

CJ from Whittier, CA

CJ is really into 4K HD Blu-rays, and he wants to know if he should buy a 4K HDR TV now, or wait until Black Friday? Rich says that streaming is the future and Blu-ray discs are going away. He's going to want to get 4K HDR with Dolby and HDR10. Those are the two standards. He can wait until Black Friday, but the best time to get a TV is just before the Super Bowl.

Black Friday Sales Numbers Show Rise in eCommerce

Online shopping

Episode 1443

Though Monday is known as "Cyber Monday," the day people take to the internet to find great online deals for Christmas, Black Friday sales figures show a rise in online shopping, including a double-digit increase in using mobile devices to buy goods. The average order was $135, up from last year.

Phone sales were also big this year, with deals on the iPhone X that offered gift cards if you bought one. Walmart gave a $300 gift card.

Cyber Monday is expected to be even bigger, by 10-20%.

Scott Wilkinson on Home Theater

Scott Wilkinson

Episode 1442

Scott says that most of the door buster deals on Black Friday were for store brands or captive brands like Element and others. But LG put all of their LCD TVs on deep discount this time around, so there were great deals there to be had. The LG B7 and C7 are nearly identical with the higher end LGs because they have the same panels. So get the lower cost ones. The performance will be similar, the only difference is processing speed and power. Sony also put the X900E TV on sale as well.

Black Friday Vs. Cyber Monday

Black Friday

Episode 1442

We survived another Black Friday. Braving fist fights for deals on last year's models, Leo says that traffic was terrible for Black Friday, and there were plenty of deals to be had. Cyber Monday is coming, where people shop for special deals online. Leo wonders if after Net Neutrality rules are tossed next month if ISPs will charge a toll for visiting sites like Amazon next year.

Find Black Friday Deals Online

Finding Black Friday sales can be overwhelming and stressful, but Thrifter.com is focusing all of its energy to find the best deals for you. Every item on the site has been vetted by their team, and there are tons of categories to look through. This tip comes from Rene Ritchie, Editor in Chief at iMore.com, a site that's owned by the same parent company.