Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sales

I hate shopping.

There I said it.

As a both a woman and an American consumer, I should be alight with glee at the upcoming deals bonanza that is Black Friday and Cyber Monday; but because I do loathe shopping, I tend to look year-round for deals to buy for birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays (we celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas). As a result, I rarely need anything by the time these hallowed days roll around, and as such, I've noticed many times the so-called "deals" we're supposedly getting aren't always what they seem.

Case in point - we stopped off at Wal-Mart (yes,it's a horrible employer and I should avoid it like the plague but it's RIGHT THERE) tonight and the store had already started their Black Friday sales at 6 PM. I have never seen so many people in one place buying big screen TVs - every shopping cart we passed had at least one in it. I listened as people cackled gleefully, positive they'd pulled one over on the Man because they got their products at 30-40% off. However, when I looked closer, a lot of the brands they were buying weren't big named ones (i.e. Samsung, Sony, LG, or Panasonic) but ones I'd never heard of in my life (Sceptre, Seiki and Cielo to name a few). Those who had snagged the brand named HDTVs didn't seem to realize they were buying older versions; technology moves fast, so the bells and whistles that were cool last year is soundly defeated by the new bangs this year. 

I was curious enough to check the ads prominent on two of my favorite websites - Amazon and Newegg - and soon realized their "deals" weren't so great I just had to have the item. In fact, they were pretty much on par with their usual coupons and a lot of the items they were unloading was older stock; after all, many of the big companies are releasing new items in time for Christmas and the new year.

Savvy shoppers would do well to avoid the frenzy of this weekend and don't end up like my friend who was ecstatic she managed to scoop up a Samsung Galaxy S3 for $0.01; I didn't have the heart to point out that the S4 is already out.