Black Friday is not a Good Holiday Toy Sales Day

We have never seen good toy deals on Black Friday. Unless a retailer decided to discount a certain top holiday toy like for instance Zuh-Zuh pets to lure customers into stores. Now we have also statistical proof thanks to a study conducted by ShopAdvisor.

My tip is to shop for hot toy deals ahead of Black Friday or wait into late December. Waiting has though the risk that hot toys have sold out.

Study findings:

During the 2011 holiday shopping season from Sept. 20 – Dec. 31, ShopAdvisor users “watched” 252 different toys worth $25 or more. ShopAdvisor kept track of prices and availability of these toys, and sent alerts to users when prices dropped. The total value of the 252 toys on the first day they were “watched” was $22,138. After watching these toys for three months, ShopAdvisor discovered the following shopping facts:

• Black Friday was among the worst sale days of the 2011 shopping season. In the 54 days from Nov. 1 through Dec 24, the day with the fewest products on sale was Black Friday, Nov. 25.

If Santa had purchased all 252 toys for his bag on Black Friday, he would have saved $515 compared to the original holiday season prices; but there were 8 other days when he could have saved more than $1,000.

• The safest time to buy is the third week in November. For shoppers who wanted to make sure they were not overpaying for toys, the five days from Wednesday, Nov. 13 thru Sunday, Nov. 20, were the safest shopping days. More than half (52%) of all toys were on sale from their original holiday price, while only a handful (12%) was above their original price.

• Steep discounts begin to appear the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Sunday, Nov. 20 was the day when steep discounts of greater than 30% began to appear, when more than 8% of products have deeply slashed price tags.

• After Thanksgiving, December 1 is the best sale day. The best chance of getting a toy under its original holiday season price was the first day in December, when 58% of all toys were on sale, and only 20% were above their original price.

• Risk-tolerant bargain hunters should wait until the final 14 days before Christmas. If you are willing to wait, or procrastinate, you can count on steep discounts in the two weeks before December 25. Last year, every day, starting December 11, at least one in ten toys was available for 30% or more under their original holiday prices. But, delaying can also burn you: almost as many toys saw price increases of 30% or more.

• Avoid day-after-Christmas shopping; wait until December 29. If the toy you are giving does not have to be under the tree on Christmas day, it pays to wait until December 29. 17% of all the toys in the ShopAdvisor Watchlist were available for 30% less than their pre-Black Friday prices.

Read the full study here (pdf).

Black Friday Countdown is providing you with early trends for Black Friday 2012 deals during the year. See the current list of Black Friday 2012 Ads now.
One huge topic will be Windows 8 this Black Friday. Another hot item will be 7-inch tablets. Apple, Google and Amazon will battle with special deals for market share. Other tablet manufactures will try to find their luck with Black Friday Windows 8 Tablet deals. See also the excellent I4U News Black Friday 2012 Deal Coverage.