What to Buy on Black Friday versus Cyber Monday

Sports often is rife with hyperbole when two teams face off in a battle for superlative supremacy.

Often, cliches run roughshod over the pregame hype, with “something has to give” or the “immovable object against and irresistible force.” This rhetoric allows fans to make a choice of which team is better, who will prevail and there “can be only one winner.” Shopping in the holidays has two perennial powerhouses that consumers (the fans, in this case) that go head to head with one another, but with a twist that sports and the big game don’t allow.

You can have two winners; well, three if you count the customer.

Everyone’s holiday budget is only so large, so expandable and has limitations to it, which forces (in the mind of customers) to choose how they spend and if it makes more sense to buy on Black Friday in the store, online or wait and use your resources on Cyber Monday instead.

But unlike sports, you don’t have to choose just one; there doesn’t have to be only one.

The idea behind multiple shopping days that define the holiday buying experience is ensuring you’re getting the most for your dollar, and that means melding together Cyber Monday and Black Friday so that you can get what you need for the person on your wish list, minus choosing one and overspending when both options are viable.

And boy, are they viable.

Cyber Monday made history in 2017 with record online sales, and a huge increase from the previous year (2016).

Last year, Cyber Monday set a record for being the largest U.S. shopping day in online buying history, generating 6.5 billion dollars and a 17 percent increase from a year ago; not to mention mobile sales hitting the 2 billion dollar mark.^[1]

The idea that most consumers spend their money over the Black Friday through Cyber Monday time frame is backed by statistics that suggest spending over that weekend increased 47 percent from 2016 to 2017, with an average of $743 over that weekend time period, up from the $505 from 2016.^[2]

This suggests that these two holidays not only play well off one another, but aren’t mutually exclusive to a customer. Generating that sort of revenue on Cyber Monday and the amount spent may indirectly make you think Black Friday no longer is a major player in the holiday marketplace. Far from it.

You could suggest that Cyber Monday and online Black Friday shopping is the way of the future, and that waiting or going to the store is passed its prime, so to speak, but that doesn’t mean the marketing and star-power of Black Friday still doesn’t make money hand over fist for retailers.

It’s really the melding of both that seals the deal for retailers and gives consumers that much needed buying flexibility to save money.

Black Friday scored just over 5 billion dollars in online sales in 2017, not to mention nearly 3 billion on early sales for Thanksgiving Day (another sales day altogether consumers take advantage of); The average order on Black Friday online was up $135 from 2016 as well.^[3]

In addition, 2018 looks to be another banner year on the horizon with increases in total shoppers on the Black Friday weekend (174 to 180 million shoppers) and sales also significantly predicated to take a jump versus 2017.^[4]

When you consider the entire shopping time period in 2017 from November 1 through the 24th, sales were just under 40 billion dollars just in online revenue, up 18 percent.^[5]

That statistic, among others cited, really is telling in that consumers are getting savvier with how they shop, which holiday they shop on, but more importantly which products are best to buy on Black Friday (either in store or online) or Cyber Monday.

Unlike the sports games that pique our interest for a final outcome of one, this is more about asking a very important shopping question:

Are you buying the right products on the right shopping day? Here’s what you should be buying on Black Friday versus Cyber Monday to save the most:

Black Friday is all about TVs, toys for the kids and adults, such appliances and tools

You’d be hard pressed to ignore all the sales that Black Friday has to offer, and so choosing between that day and Cyber Monday really is just making sure you get the best deal possible.

In 2016, 99.1 million Americans shopped in a store, and 51 percent was done in a department store with 23 percent of Black Friday shoppers camping out in front of the store.^[6]

That tells you how power Black Friday is, especially with TVs.

Suggesting that you can’t find a good deal on a TV on Cyber Monday isn’t really the purpose of this discussion but instead showcasing that the Black Friday TV deals are, well, better when it comes to securing the lower prices.

Most of what made Black Friday shopping so lucrative are the inevitable “door busters” routine that gets you to wake up at 5 a.m. and go shopping, but that is more about pomp and circumstance versus the actuality of the event.

Door busters are great, but they’re limited, and that means you can’t count on those to drive your Black Friday shopping. Instead, you’ll want to devise a plan of attack, where to go and what to buy, based on the sales that are constant and consistent, not the offers that knock your socks off, although that doesn’t mean those are any less important or could potentially find their way on your wish list.

Walmart shows just how valuable Black Friday is for both toys and TVs, with two deals that jump off the page that were leaked ahead of schedule.

A 50 inch Samsung, 4K LED TV is $397 versus the $600 price tag it typically has, while a PS4 1TB Spiderman Bundle is only $199 at Walmart.^[7]

Target is another example from a TV and gaming perspective as far as Black Friday goes with a few teasers for that day, sales wise.

They’re offering 15 TVs under the $300 price range, along with the Nintendo Switch Mario Kart 8 bundle for $299 and appliance wise, a Dyson V6 cord-free vacuum for $189, down about $100 from its typical price, but not to be outdone Best Buy also is offering 50 percent off all appliances on Black Friday, too.^[8]

Cyber Monday is all about laptops and clothing, along with phones and tablets

Cyber Monday scores big with consumers when it comes to laptops and PC’s more than anything else. The tech specials you’ll find are going to be that much better than what you’d see on Black Friday, although again those door busters are hard to ignore, and computers most likely will be on that list.

But, again, you can’t rely on those types of promotions as your proverbial “bread and butter” of your shopping list, simply because if you assume you’ll get one, and you don’t, you’ll miss that opportunity.

That’s why you buy laptops on Cyber Monday, because they’re consistently priced lower, and TVs on Black Friday, again based on consistency.

Clothing also makes the list, along side cell phones and tablets, for Cyber Monday just due to the promotion of convenience.

Clothing deals on Cyber Monday typically see deals between 30 and 50 percent off in-store and in-season items from retailers such as Gap, Express, Old Navy and Target; Gap had 50 percent off clothing last year as an example of how much discount you get.^[9]

Buying online for Cyber Monday when it comes to phones often are riddled with promotions that are not only prices that are lower than they would be year-round but also redeemable promotions as well, such as money back when you buy a new phone or even buy one get one half off or completely free, depending on the carrier and how much love they’re ready to show consumers.

The great part about Cyber Monday and tablets, phones in general is that propensity of carriers to battle one another and get your attention, often giving you deals that try to “one up” each other, and you ultimately gain the best deal possible.

Cyber Monday also typically has the best retailers each and every year as far as what they’re offering: Walmart, Target, Game Stop and Amazon are the top of the food retail chain year after year as far as Cyber Monday goes.^[10]

Deals on laptops as it relates to Cyber Monday range anywhere from $270 for a Dell to nearly $1,000 but the most obvious notation about the deals a whole is how much you save on average when you buy a laptop on Cyber Monday; one example is a Dell Precision 15 7000 15.6 laptop with core i7 processor and 8 GB for $959 but down from $1924.57, nearly a $1,000 discount, and the Dell Latitude 3580 15.6 laptop with i7 and 4 GB marked down from $1,227.14 to $699, nearly half off.^[11]

One safe bet, in totality, when it comes to Cyber Monday is the success and one-stop shopping philosophy that works for Amazon. Last year, Amazon sold in a big way with its Cyber Monday eclipsing its other hot day of the year, sales wise, Prime Day; Amazon didn’t get into specifics but did tout “hundreds of millions of products sold on that day alone.^[12]

The holiday shopping season is almost here, and officially (well, unofficially) kicks off on Thanksgiving with sales that start usually by the time you’re official half asleep after eating too much turkey.

That evening shopping spree morphs into a weekend long (and into Cyber Monday) of spending with the intent, hopefully, not to overspend but make smart buying decisions as far as how you budget and what products make the most sense to buy on a particular day, citing choices of Black Friday versus Cyber Monday.

Picking a winner says that Cyber Monday is the new king of the buying castle, but the true victor is the shopper that knows how to purchase predicated on which day elicits the best deal, and save money on that holiday shopping list.

The general thought is that the general public is going to spend more in 2018 versus 2017, with 29 percent of people saying they’ll spend more, feeling more financially secure to do so this year than last, and 56 percent of the population not having a pre-set holiday budget.^[13]

That is a recipe for financial disaster, so being able to discern what to buy and which sale day is better is paramount to ensuring that the biggest winner on the holiday shopping weekend in 2018 is you.