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According to a recent report issued by the personal finance website Wallethub, some retailers recycle their black Friday deals year to year, despite their claims that they provide exclusive and one-of-a-kind bargains.
WalletHub analysts found that on average 11 percent of Black Friday deals are reused from a year prior every year. Researchers found that some U.S. retail companies recycle even more of their special offers. For instance, Ohio-based Big Lots repeated close to 17 percent of past years’ specials.
Staples on the other hand reused just five percent of its Black Friday offers. Investigators found that the retailer with the most genuine offers and some of the largest discounts is JC Penney. The department store chain usually offers up to 68 percent discount rate every year. By contrast, Costco had the lowest general discount rate, with just 20 percent.
Despite Costco and the likes, shoppers should not panic since the overall discount rate among all surveyed retailers is still well above 40 percent. Yet, they should also get ready to stumble on those pesky recycled deals from a year prior.
For instance, on Amazon site the Peg Perego XP850 Polaris Sporstman Ride On was discounted from $599.99 to $549.99 last year, while this year the same item is discounted to $539.94. Best Buy features a refrigerator from Samsung with the same price cut as last year’s. At Kohl’s, a rotary razor from Norelco is discounted from 149.99 to 59.99 in 2014, and 69.99 in 2015. And similar Black Friday deals are reposted over and over again by Sears, Target, Walmart, Staples, Macy’s, and many others.
You should check Wallethub’s site for more repeated deals and statistics.
When asked why retailers resort to such practices, Prof. Tayloe Murphy of University of Virginia’ school of business believes that retailers do it ‘out of a habit’ because customers expect certain price reductions to popular items such as tablets and big screen TVs year after year. This is why, people could get better deals on days other than Black Friday, Murphy believes.
Another WalletHub analyst, Kirthi Kalyanam, noted that big retailers do have consistent deals every year especially for technology and fashion. But copycat bargains are just a marketing strategy to drive more traffic into their stores.
Prof. Xiaojing Dong of the Santa Clara University’s school of business thinks that retailers reuse their previous deals because Black Friday became more of a tradition among customers. He also noted that Cyber Monday can now have more appealing deals than Black Friday in the U.S.
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