Many consumers who rise before dawn on Black Friday and stand in the cold waiting for a store to open often complain that it wasn't worth it - they didn't get the item they wanted or it cost more than they thought.
Their experience is not all that uncommon, it turns out. According to a new study by ShopAdvisor, a shopping service, Black Friday was among the worst sales days of the 2011 shopping season.
Higher prices on Black Friday
The study tracked the prices of 252 toys from the first day of autumn and found that in the 54 days from Nov. 1 through Dec. 24, the day with the lowest percentage -- 46 percent -- of products on sale below their initial holiday season price was Black Friday, Nov. 25. The day with the highest percentage -- 59 percent -- of products on sale was Sunday, Nov. 13. After Thanksgiving, Thursday, Dec. 1 was the day with the next largest percentage of products on sale.
As a matter of fact, Black Friday turned out to be the day on which shoppers begin to see prices spike on select items. On Black Friday itself, 24 percent of the toys on ShopAdvisor's list were priced above their initial holiday season price.
Waiting too late is costly, too
After Black Friday, the day with the most toys selling at a premium price was Dec. 23, two days before Christmas.
"Our experience tracking more than a hundred million products shows that although Black Friday may be a good day for shopping, there are 'blacker' days to be found during the holiday shopping season," said Scott Cooper, CEO of ShopAdvisor.
ShopAdvisor drew up its list of toys by monitoring the choices of its more than 6.5 million users who add products to their ShopAdvisor Watchlist and receive email and mobile notifications when prices drop or out-of-stock products become available. The company says prices will fluctuate during the season, probably more than most consumers realize.
The most vigilant shoppers will watch for sudden price drops and avoid price spikes that often last only a day or two before plunging back down to their original price or lower.
Volatile prices
For example, National Products' 6 Volt Pink Hummer H2 started the holiday season selling for $186. For two days it dropped as low as $132. On Thanksgiving Day it spiked to $227, fell to $190 on Black Friday, and then spiked back to $227 eight more times before Christmas day.
In between those spikes, a savvy shopper could find it for $160 on six different days.
Hasbro's popular Sesame Street Let's Rock Elmo was a bargain for almost the entire season, selling below its initial holiday season price of $59 on 60 of the next 65 days. The only question for shoppers was how long to hold out. Those who waited until Sunday, Dec, 18 fot a 49 percent discount, paying only $29.
Best day?
If you hit the snooze bar on Black Friday, then when should you shop for the best deals? It will probably vary store to store, but ShopAdvisor says steep discounts of 30 percent or more began to show up the Sunday before Thanksgiving.
For example, the $117 LEGO Ninjago Fire Temple dropped 38 percent to $72 for three days from Nov. 18-20.
The more risk you're willing to take on, the longer you should wait to shop. If shoppers are willing to wait, or procrastinate, they can count on steep discounts in the two weeks before Christmas. Last year, every day, starting Dec. 11, at least one in ten toys were available for 30 percent or more under their original prices.
And here's another piece of holiday shopping advice: avoid day-after-Christmas shopping; wait until Dec. 29. If the toy you are giving does not have to be under the tree on Christmas day, it pays to wait until Dec. 29 when 17 percent of all the toys in the ShopAdvisor Watchlist were available for 30 percent less than their pre-Black Friday prices.
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