The biggest sales weekend of the year is finally here
. The Black Friday Day is here and it's time
to get smart about our shopping here to help us
do. That is Kristen and a special guest.
Christen, our smart shopping expert at True trade.com Trey
. We're so happy to have you, especially on
this busy holiday. And so how is Black Friday
spending going to look this year? Uh Well,
thanks so much for having me and Happy Black Friday
. Uh It's gonna be an interesting Black Friday,
Cyber Monday and holiday season in general. Uh just
because we're seeing that consumers are being pretty conservative with
how they want to spend. National Retail Federation is
showing about a 3 to 4% jump. Um which
you know, that's not spectacular, but the businesses
should do. Ok. Uh But what I'm seeing
in terms of spending specifically is about$600 per family
on gifts and another$255 on things like Decor and
Travel. I personally do so much shopping online.
Are there any advantages to shopping in a brick and
mortar store trying to elbow people with the rudeness versus
just going online. Yeah, this is such an
important question and something that everyone's wondering about. I
do like in store shopping on Black Friday for a
couple of reasons. Uh First of all, you
might find maybe an exclusive uh deal, maybe a
special bundle that's only in store. And also you
can really interact with those items that you're considering to
give to others. Uh And plus going into say
a big box store, you can get a lot
done in one place. So for example, if
you go to Target, you can find up to
50% off tech, up to 40% off thousands of
other items. And then you can also get your
grocery shopping done at the same time and maybe save
another 5% if you have the target red card.
So for me in store shopping on Black Friday is
not so bad just because you can get a lot
done all in one place. What category trade should
we focus on for Black Friday Savings? Yeah.
So this is important because you don't have to do
all of your shopping on this day, right?
So you can divide and conquer. I would focus
on tech. It really is the star of the
day. I'm seeing fantastic deals in tech, also
small home appliances. So you think like video doorbells
and robotic vacuums, beauty products. I'm seeing very
deep discounts in that category and then fall apparel and
footwear is another favorite category of mine and then lastly
gift set. So this is a really good day
for those categories and that's where I would focus.
So Trey, are there any categories of goods that
typically don't offer much savings on Black Friday that we
should just say not today? Yeah. So I
love this question also. And you know what I
typically find year after year is that toys are more
deeply discounted in December. However, I am seeing
a lot of activity in the toy category. So
what I would say is this, if you have
a child who has a very specific toy that they're
looking for, especially if that toy is on the
hot toy list this year, you might want to
grab it now if you see a deal, but
typically we see deeper discounts in December, I would
hold off on win apparel that tends to be better
in December and then also anything holiday themed, you
know, retailers aren't necessarily in the biggest hurry to
clear that merchandise out today. But in December,
they want to clear that merchandise out for December and
before January rather. So that those are the categories
that I would hold off on all. Very good
to know. So we've got some good deals,
Trey that you've outlined, how can we save on
top of what retailers might be offering? Yeah.
So you never want to take a pri a price
at face value on Black Friday. Retailers have lots
of sales going as you said, but you can
often do better by using a deal site if you're
shopping online or a deal app. If you're shopping
in store, a coupon cabin who I work with
is one of my favorites for this because they have
an in store app that you can use it,
just click on in store and you scroll through all
the offers. This is really good if you're in
the mall and looking for savings as you go.
So definitely make sure that you're using a deal site
because you can save more on top of the already
spectacular deals. And what I would also say is
just make sure that you're using the credit card in
your wallet that's giving you some advantage, maybe 1%
or 2% cash back on your purchases or some points
for your next vacation. You can Google the name
of your credit card if you're not familiar what those
benefits are and then just shop with that credit card
that's giving you the best bang for your buck.
Thank you so much, Straight Bo for your fantastic 00:04:42.449 --> advice.