Offline vs. Online Black Friday Shopping

Better Experience

Some people really get a lot of joy and excitement about going out for Black Friday. It can be a fun activity that you do with your family and friends that shopping online doesn’t offer. You can help each other try on and select new clothing, test out electronics and even save on your breakfast, lunch, or dinner. While the conveniences of online shopping are nice, nothing can beat the memories and fun times that you can share with your loved ones. Black Friday only comes around once a year so make the most of it! Through the years we have heard about a number of family traditions concerning offline Black Friday shopping that puts the emphasis of the day more on family than on shopping. We have even read about one family in Los Angeles that has camped outside of the local Best Buy for six days straight before Black Friday for the last six years! Now that's some high quality family time and certainly and a better experience than doing all of your shopping online.

Online Advantages

 1. Larger Selection/Inventory

     The best part about shopping online on Black Friday is that you will many times have      access to every product that the store offers. According to ExportX , Amazon sells over 232 million products at Amazon.com which is certainly many more products than any store we have ever patronized! Nearly every single one of these will have some sort of discount on Black Friday. While some companies offer in store only deals, the number of products available on their website generally far exceeds this number. You are less likely to run into the "limited quantities available" situation that plagues many offline shoppers. Additionally, stores actually offer "online only" sales that are not available in stores. The greatest benefit to you is when you have a flat percentage off or dollar off coupon for a store. This allows you to have access to every item on the store’s website and to literally create your own Black Friday deal. An example of this is the screenshot above from Macy's. You will be able to take advantage of Macy's already discounted rate for an item plus receive an additional 20% OFF if you enter the promo code "REDHOT". Another common problem is that traditional store locations will many times sell out of products. While this still has the chance of happening online, it is a far less common occurrence.

 2. More Stores

     With traditional Black Friday shopping, you are required to choose a store and arrive early Thanksgiving day or early in the morning on Friday. If you are one of the lucky first ones in, you will get the sale that you had hoped for. Unfortunately, this doesn’t leave you much time to hit the other stores and get their best deals, as they will already be gone. Shopping online allows you to load the website of every single store that you are interested in shopping at. For example, in the screenshot above we have easily accessed the websites of Best Buy, Home Depot, Amazon, Kohl's, Target and Walmart all at once. This allows us to easily browse all six of these stores at once and tab between their websites as we please. We recommend making an account prior to the big day so that you can just add the items that you want in your cart and quickly pay. Using this method, you can hit multiple stores an hour depending on how fast you are and if you already know what you want.

There is also an almost infinite amount of online only stores as well as online stores without brick and mortar locations in your area. This opens up your possibilities so much more as you now have thousands of stores at your disposal with the click of a mouse. This really lets you find the exact deal that you want with little effort. If you are shopping for a specific model tablet, you can now find who has the lowest price quickly by browsing multiple websites at once or using our hot items pages. In the past, you would have had to sort through countless circulars and only get to pick between maybe 5-10 stores carrying that particular product.

3. More Efficient

    There is nothing more efficient than online shopping. You do not have to deal with crowds, traffic, pushy sales people, long lines or any of the other nonsense that comes with shopping in person. You simple create your store account, add your products to the virtual shopping cart and hit the magical checkout button. Unsure of a product and need more information?  You no longer have to flag down the nearest worker who probably doesn’t know any more than you do about the products. You have customer and editor reviews at your fingertips. In the Amazon example above you can easily see the number of customer reviews, that 64% of people rated the product 5 stars and that 7% of people rated it 1 star. Not only can you see the star ratings, but you can read actual customer reviews where people will tell their stories of how they product has treated them. You also have the ability to read specs and other technical information that may not be available in the store. And the best part is there is absolutely no chance that you will be one of the unlucky people that get stampeded on by other anxious shoppers!

4. No Sales Tax

Unless you live in one of the few lucky states where sales tax is not required  to be collected, you are going to have to pay it on all of your in store purchases on Black Friday. While some just consider this a mandatory cost that they cannot get out of, there is another way. Many online retailers still do not charge sales tax on any purchase on their website. While some larger stores ask for your zip code and state and charge you the correct amount of tax required by your state, this is not the norm when you consider the vast number of online retailers. 

*This number has been decreasing over recent years, so we recommend you take advantage of no sales tax while you can. Many times whether websites charge you sales tax online depends on the state where you live. We have been keeping track of online sales tax information right here. You can see where your state falls when it comes to the online sales tax war. 

5. Free Shipping

    This is more of an "even the playing" field advantage as opposed to a true advantage. One of the negatives of online shopping in the past on Black Friday was that shipping costs were so high that the discounts were severely cut into. This is really a thing of the past as most stores offer free shipping on all orders or free shipping when you meet a low total order amount threshold. In the example above from Walmart you can see that the Apple iPad Air 2 64GB Wi-Fi is entitle to free shipping and free in store pickup. Whenever you make an online purchase check for these indicators to insure you will not pay for shipping. Sometimes the price threshold for free shipping is an amount like $50 and your purchase is $49.99. In these cases we recommend buying something cheap for a $1 or less so that your total will go over $50 and save you more money so you don't have to pay for shipping fees that can be in excess of $10.