Cyber Monday Deals 2011

#Cyber #Monday #2011 #Technology #Bargains #Toys

Following on from my early post I decided to do a little research on where the Cyber Monday deals were this year.

It seems that the 4 days are just going to blur together with Black Friday running into Cyber Monday.

A google search on Cyber Monday Deals 2011 yields almost 4000 hits.  I'll leave it up to you to trawl through what makes a good Cyber Monday deal and what doesn't although this article from hawtwired highlights a few of the things you can expect to find good deals on.

http://hawtwired.com/blogs/news/archive/2011/11/25/954.aspx

Video games like Battlefield 3 were on sale in Best Buy on Black Friday and it looks like you will also find deals on them for Cyber Monday online.  Also Sk

Amazon.com is obviously the king of the online deal.  Since earlier on in the week they launched a Black Friday like deal platform and will continue those deals through to Cyber Monday.  It is fascinating watching the crawl of the deal counter scroll across as a frenzy of buying goes on across the web.  Much safer than the crazy videos of stampedes on Black Friday at Walmart's around the country.

Even my own little niche retail apparel store www.swimsweats.com has been doing our part.  We have been offering pretty big discounts in the lead up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  We'll go back to regular pricing on Tuesday next week so if you need towel pants to put on after swimming, or even just to lounge around in because of how massively comfortable they are, you should check out the bargains before they disappear.  We're already almost out of stock in most color combinations and sizes sorry.  But we should have some more in before Christmas.

One of the other things you could consider as a strategy is to download the Amazon app to your smart phone, go back out into the stores that have reassembled their shelves and products from the Black Friday chaos, and look for the products you truly need or want.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000291661

http://www.amazon.com/gp/anywhere/sms/android

Scan the barcode using the Amazon app and it will tell you the price and the deals available online for the product you are looking at.  That way you can see if something you have a justifiable want for is a bargain on Cyber Monday instead of dealing with the addictive scroll of opportunities and finding yourself like me with your third digital camera (Sony cybershot secured at Walmart on Black Friday) because it was just too good a deal to pass up!

Of course there are some ethics involved.  You are using a store with considerable overheads and costs to evaluate a product.  Then if you purchase it online at a cheaper price you are cutting that store who assisted you in your final decision to buy the product out of any monetary reward for the sale.  The way I rationalize it is that if the difference in price between the online Cyber Monday or Black Friday deal is small compared to the in store price, I'll buy the product in the store.  But if the difference is huge I figure the store is looking to milk their customers for a substantial margin so they can live without my purchase in this case.

Today I used the app with a pair of Asics Gel Running shoes.  Dick's had a Black Friday deal on them but I got in the store after 2pm and didn't get the discounted price or the ability to use the coupon they offered.  The difference in price was $14.   They were $79 in store and $65 online through Amazon.  So I decided to buy them in the store.  I figured by the time I went home and ordered them, paid for shipping, and then waited for them the difference in price wasn't worth the hassle.  But if the price had been more than $20 different I probably would have put up with the headache of doing the online deal.

There is also the possibility that some of the Black Friday merchandise will still be available because it was misplaced in the chaos and ends up back on the shelf after the event.  Although I notice today at Dick's that once the window of Door Buster opportunities was finished they didn't hold the cheaper price but put them all back up to regular price and also refused to honor any expired coupons.

So in some cases it's good for a window, some it's good until gone, and some it's good just until you come to your senses.

Happy shopping, wishing you successful bargains and deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and don't go into debt for anything you really don't need.