Our seven top tips for shopping Black Friday & Cyber Monday that will really save you money

At IndyBest, we track prices year-round, so we can spot a genuine deal as soon as it appears (The Independent)

Now just around the corner, Black Friday is your chance to pick up a bargain on everything from TVs and home appliances to tech, fashion and mattresses. However, each year, the annual sale is also teeming with deals that are too good to be true.

We’ve been reporting on the Black Friday sale for years at IndyBest, so we like to think we know a thing or two about spotting a genuine deal and weeding out the duds.

To help you navigate this year’s offers, our team of IndyBest experts have compiled a list of our top Black Friday shopping tips, from general guidance to more specific advice on finding the best deals on our favourite products year-round.

Whether you’re shopping for a new air fryer or looking to upgrade your electric toothbrush, our advice should help you pick out the best deals so you can shop with confidence.

Follow live: The latest and best Black Friday deals

1. Make a list

Head into the Black Friday sale with a clear plan of action. Research your options, check out some reviews and make a list of the things you actually want to buy. Then try to avoid being lured off course by the wave of enticing red tags you’ll be bombarded with.

2. Be wary of weird brands

Some brands only ever seem to appear in the sales, only to vanish again like hibernating mice once the dust has settled. During previous Black Fridays, we’ve found this is especially true when it comes to laptop deals, where obscure brands can dominate the listings at online retailers.

If you spot an eye-catching deal from a brand you don’t recognise, it’s worth quickly checking online for reviews of their products. If you don’t find any – and if our IndyBest experts haven’t covered them – that product probably isn’t worth your money.

3. Register your accounts in advance

When a seriously good Black Friday deal appears, online retailers can be overwhelmed by new customers trying to sign up to grab the discount before it sells out.

This happened a lot during the PlayStation 5 shortage, when demand for the console was so enormous, that sites would slow to a crawl or even crash completely whenever new stock appeared.

You can avoid the rush by registering accounts at your favourite retailers ahead of time, saving you precious minutes should that showstopper of a deal suddenly appear. We prefer to save our payment details in our browser (rather than with retailers), so they’re ready to deploy anywhere online.

TVs are among the most popular items sold on Black Friday, but you probably don’t need the latest model

(Samsung)

4. Find the best electric toothbrush deals

If you’ve ever been shopping for a new electric toothbrush and come across some costing upwards of £500, you’ll rightly wonder who on earth is paying a small fortune for what’s essentially a vibrating stick you pop in your mouth twice a day.

The reality is, not many people are paying that price. The big brands offer a range of electric toothbrushes at every price point they can fill, from £20 or £30 all the way up to those eye-watering sums. This could be an example of price anchoring, a technique where brands will set certain products at a very high price to make their mid-priced alternatives seem more appealing.

Look out for misleading 50 per cent discounts on electric toothbrushes, too. Some of the more expensive brushes bounce up and down in price, spending exactly two weeks at full price, then two weeks at half price – rinse, spit, and repeat. Treat the discounted price as the genuine price, and be on the lookout for discounts of more than 50 per cent on these brushes – that’s when you’ll actually make a saving.

5. Shop for deals on TVs from last year

Televisions launch at a given price, then tend to get gradually cheaper and cheaper over the course of the year. The “before” price you’ll see listed at many online retailers will often be a television’s original price, which can make discounts appear a lot larger than they truly are. At IndyBest, we track prices year-round, so, when you shop for Black Friday TV deals using our guides, we can give you a better idea of the savings on offer.

The best deals on TVs are usually on sets from previous years. Most of the big brands refresh their product line-up annually, to stay ahead of the competition, but the improvements tend to be so marginal that buying the same model of TV from 2021 or 2022 won’t make much difference to your viewing experience.

6. Don’t wait around

Black Friday might officially start on 24 November but that hasn’t stopped many retailers and brands are kicking off their own sales early. The likes of Shark, Dyson, John Lewis and Ninja are already getting in on the action.

Most of these sales will run for the entire month of November, ending on Cyber Monday, so it’s worth keeping an eye out for early deals on products you’re interested in before they potentially sell out.

7. Check out the IndyBest liveblog

We’ll end with a shameless plug for our beloved Black Friday liveblog, which we’re running from now all the way up until midnight on Cyber Monday (27 November). The liveblog is captained by our team of IndyBest shopping experts, who are already busy rifling through the torrent of discounts on offer, to bring you the Black Friday deals worth caring about.

You’ll also find more shopping tips on the liveblog, and even more coverage across our entire directory of Black Friday shopping guides.

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Find out everything you need to know about Black Friday 2023 in our cheat sheet