I used to love waking up early the day after Thanksgiving and rushing to the stores with mom to tackle Christmas shopping and get some great deals. We would look at the circulars and plan where we wanted to go. Then we’d get there and struggle to find the things we were looking for and stand in line for hours and give up before we got most of the things we wanted.
And so, in recent years, I’ve loved getting all my Christmas shopping done online! In this post I’m going to share 5 reasons to shop online for Black Friday.
5 Reasons to Shop Online for Black Friday
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1. Most of the time the exact same deals are available online!
Aside from the rare, wait-in-line-for-hours, only-3-per-story deal, all of the same Black Friday deals are available online. Stores offer the same deals on their website as they offer in their stores because, put simply, they want your money and they don’t really care how they get it from you.
Better yet, those same deals are usually available for a longer period of time in the online store. Brick and mortar businesses are limited by the hours that they’re open. Online stores are open 24 hours a day. Some stores even offer deals online for the whole week or month that aren’t available in the stores.
In fact, oftentimes, you’ll get a better deal shopping online.
Many stores allow you to use more coupon codes online than they would let you use coupons in stores.
And think about this… when you shop online you are actually more likely to find and use a coupon. Don’t you always look for coupon codes before checking out online? (If you answered no to that question, start doing this!)
It’s not as easy to get in-store coupons. I know you might get that giant Thanksgiving Day newspaper stuffed with circulars and coupons, but the truth is there are so many more coupons that aren’t included in that because they only exist on the internet. It’s so much cheaper for stores to make coupons available online-only because it saves them shipping costs.
2. It’s so much easier to compare prices online
I don’t know about you, but anytime I’m doing anything on my computer I have about 15 tabs open. While I know this isn’t always the best idea, it is super helpful on Black Friday.
Prices are changing quickly on big sale days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Having the ability to open many stores’ websites makes it easy to jump from store to store to compare prices. This is basically the equivalent of running into 10 different stores to find out what the price is before deciding where to buy.
Again, I know that stores do provide circulars you can see ahead of time that you can preview at home, but these are only their best deals. The circulars will not necessarily contain the exact items that you are looking for.
If the store sells the item, it will be listed on their website and you will be able to see the real-time price at those peak sale times.
Use online tools to help you find the best price
Have you ever found something you wanted on sale and wondered if it really was a good deal? If you don’t know the regular price that item has been sold for, it’s hard to know if the sale price is actually a good deal.
There are also some awesome online tools out there like CamelCamelCamel and Slickdeals that you can use to figure out if you’re really getting a deal.
CamelCamelCamel is a price tracker for all of the products on Shop Amazon – Give the Gift of Amazon Prime![""]("//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=haphumhom-20&l=pf4&o=1")
This tool can help you even if you’re not buying from Shop Amazon – Give the Gift of Amazon Prime
Slickdeals is a reputable website that promotes the best deals of the moment. Members of Slickdeals share deals that they think are awesome. Then, the members of the Slickdeals community offer feedback on those deals and they actually vote on whether they think it’s a really great deal or not.
Finally, the Slickdeals team uses this information to create the Slickdeals Frontpage which features the best-of-the-best deals. So, The deals on the front page are vetted by actual users of their website and you can feel sure that the deals you’re seeing on the Frontpage of Slickdeals are really amazing deals.
3. You can use cashback websites that give you money
In my opinion, this is the best thing about shopping online.
My favorite cashback website is Ebates. If you don’t know, Ebates is an awesome cashback website that pays you (in a check or PayPal deposit) for shopping online. This is FREE MONEY, folks. If you’re not already a member, you can sign up here. I also have a whole post dedicated to telling you how wonderful Ebates is, you can read that here.
Note: Ebates is called Rakuten now. It’s still the best thing ever.
There are other great websites to use for shopping online, too. MyPoints is a website that lets you earn points when you shop online. With MyPoints you can also earn points for taking surveys and playing games. Then, you can redeem points for gift cards or cash deposits to your PayPal account.
4. No lines. No crazed shoppers. No traffic.
This is the obvious benefit of getting your Black Friday shopping done online. You don’t need to go out into the Black Friday craziness.
Please don’t get me wrong here. I know there are so many nice, normal people who go out shopping on Black Friday. I used to do it. But there are also some sale-crazed folks out there. And there are certainly a bunch of crazy drivers that I, for one, would love to stay as far away from as possible.
When you do your Black Friday shopping online, you can get the late-night, early-morning sales from your bed, in your pajamas. This is far superior to rushing out in those cold, dark hours. Or at least I think so. I know some people love that part, and good for them.
5. Being able to shop at a few places at the same time
It’s so much easier to switch from website to website than it is to actually drive from store to store. If you’re actually going out to stores you’re less likely to shop at many different places and as a result you may not be getting the best deals at each place.
Shopping online makes it very easy to get the best deals that each store offers and then move on to the next store to get their best deals.
And don’t forget that many of the best stores are online only, like Shop Amazon Gift Cards. Any Occasion. No Expiration.
Want more? You may like:
The Gift that Everyone wants to Receives
9 Worst Holiday Shopping Mistakes
How to Get Paid for Shopping Online
The First Step to Saving More Money
You can read more about my story here: A Spender and A Saver Fall in Love
I am all about #4. Black Friday Shopping has never been my cup of tea.
Great article – totally agree!
I was never a big Black Friday shopper, but I did do it a couple of times, and I have to say that shopping online is so much easier for the reasons you listed. Not to mention, you can do it in your pajamas! It’s also a lot easier to read reviews in the comfort of your own home than to try to get them on your phone while standing in the crowds.
Great points! I now tend to do a mix some online and some in store. Though I usually will wait and go to the store when it calms down a bit. Though I don’t know that I’m going to be doing this year, I don’t actually need to do much shopping so I might be skipping it all.