Americans - Be careful of "Black Friday" specials

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving which is always the fourth Thursday of November. This is the big day for many retailers and many say when they start operating "in the black". Many stores will have Black Friday special deals.

This year, WalMart will be offering laptops and desktops for $299. My wife found out this and thought she wanted one. When she went to WalMart, she overheard another customer asking if she could put one on "Layaway". The clerk said "No" and that these computers are specially made for Black Friday.

"Specially made" does not likely mean they are made to higher standards. And, yes, WalMart has the "power" to get manufacturers to make their product to different standards than what they ship to other retailers. That's why the same model of (for example) lawn tractor sold at WalMart is not made the same as the same model sold at your local dealer.

Just be careful of those "Black Friday" specials, particularly electronics.

yes, because walmart has deep enough pockets to purchase and enough retail space to store say, 30% of a manufacturer's annual product turnout, they can set their own price, and set their own standard.

excellent point, Mick... i will keep this in mind

oh wow, I never even considered anything offered on BF would be substandard. I mean, its not like WalMart has more than 3 of the enticement items in stock anyways it seem like so why bother messing with quality? If they sell poor quality ppl would just return it and complain anyways which isn't good for business.

Yes this is true TO a point.

Items like HP and DELL or a game system like Xbox and PlayStation will be on upto grade for the reason they come with a warranty but they do and will cut some corners to lower the cost to make them.

I tend to buy xmas items during summer when buying times are low. When you start to get into the colder months prices slowly start to come up.

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Originally Posted by newattitude

oh wow, I never even considered anything offered on BF would be substandard. I mean, its not like WalMart has more than 3 of the enticement items in stock anyways it seem like so why bother messing with quality? If they sell poor quality ppl would just return it and complain anyways which isn't good for business.

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They actually have more than three, it only SEEMS that way sometimes. But, even if they DID only have three, think how many that would be if it were three for every store in the US. By selling lower quality AND paying even less than other retailers (for the lower quality), it far offsets any returns or complaints generated. Besides the consideration that people compare the cost there for the same brand name somewhere else (even though the quality of the items are not really comparable). It's as if you could have a $300,000 Lamborghini built like a $5000 Yugo and sell it for half the price ($150,000) of a Lamborghini anywhere else.

And I think the system in question here actually is Dell.

**** you cant put black firday specials on layaway lol

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Originally Posted by Mick

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving which is always the fourth Thursday of November. This is the big day for many retailers and many say when they start operating "in the black". Many stores will have Black Friday special deals.

This year, WalMart will be offering laptops and desktops for $299. My wife found out this and thought she wanted one. When she went to WalMart, she overheard another customer asking if she could put one on "Layaway". The clerk said "No" and that these computers are specially made for Black Friday.

"Specially made" does not likely mean they are made to higher standards. And, yes, WalMart has the "power" to get manufacturers to make their product to different standards than what they ship to other retailers. That's why the same model of (for example) lawn tractor sold at WalMart is not made the same as the same model sold at your local dealer.

Just be careful of those "Black Friday" specials, particularly electronics.

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I thought you were going to say "Be careful you don't get trampled to death by people rushing in to get these computers".

And you also have to figure on every trip the person makes into the store is one more chance to sell them something else.