A number of popular items will be reduced in price in a few weeks, but price experts also warn against false offers.
There are still a couple of weeks left until one of the year’s biggest sales weeks kicks off: Black Week. In recent years, it has become more common for stores to run many offers throughout the week, instead of just Black Friday, which this year is 26 November.
A number of popular items use to get a drop in price, and there are three product categories in particular that stand out.
– TVs, headphones and mobile phones are the largest categories, says Are Vittersø, Norwegian manager for the comparison service PriceSpy.
If you intend to shop for electronics at, for example, Elkjøp, Power or Komplett, which are the largest electronics chains, you should in other words perhaps wait until the big sales days at the end of the month.
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Apple products are getting cheaper
– Mobile phones in particular are falling sharply in price, often older models. It is a good tip if you do not need the latest of the new, he says.
However, these are not very old models, as most are only one year old. There are new models of mobile phones every year, and then the stores will be happy to sell them out before the new ones take over.
– In 2020, most were applied for iPhone 11 (launched in 2019, editor’s note), which was reduced well in price. The price was down about 1000 kroner for both the 64 and 128 gigabytes, says Vittersø.
– Apple products often hold up well in price, and are not often on sale. But on Black Friday, or in Black Week, they are often on offer, he says.
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Last year, Apple launched the iPhone 12, so we might expect sales of this model this year, since Apple launched the iPhone 13 this fall.
Another Apple product that has become very popular is the Airpods wireless earbuds. Vittersø believes Airpod’s second generation, from 2019, will be able to come on offer during this year’s Black Week.
– They will probably get rid of them now that new ones have arrived, he says.
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Fluctuates a lot in price
If you want a new, large TV, you should also wait a few weeks to shop.
– We want bigger and bigger TVs. It is usually 65- or 75-inch that drops well in price during Black Friday and Black Week, because they have a high price in the first place, says Vittersø.
He says that it is still 55-inch TVs that top the lists of the most popular TVs, but it is not this size that drops the most in price.
In Prisjakt.no’s statistics, they see that many 65-inch come closer to 55-inch, when it is the same TV model, during the big sales week at the end of November.
LG and Samsung top the lists.
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But even though big TVs tend to be cheaper during Black Week, that does not mean that it is a great offer.
– TVs and headphones are products that fluctuate a lot in price. The price history bounces violently up and down. The products probably have a good price on Black Friday and Black Week, but that does not mean that they do not have the same good price in other parts of the year, says Vittersø.
– Do not look blindly at the fact that it says, for example, “40 percent discount”, and do not go bananas. The price may have been exactly the same several times the same year, he points out.
– Easy to be dazzled
Not looking blindly at the discounts that are advertised is also something economist Lene Drange points out. She has helped Norwegians with money problems in the TV program “Luksusfellen”, and has also written the books “Pengeplanen” and “Snaponomi” – the latter with the same name as the Instagram account where she shares financial tips.
– It is easy to be dazzled by how much you can save, and let your heart rate prevail if you see a product at 40 percent. Unless you need the expensive washing machine that might be on sale, do not buy it just because it is on sale, she says.
Drange also points out how important it is to do good research, and preferably before the offers come – so you know what you need and what a good price is.
She also advises comparing items that go on sale at the various chains. Drange says that there may be a difference in the product code at the chains, which makes it not so easy to find the same product at others, in order to be able to compare prices.
– What you can do, however, is to compare the specifications of similar goods, she advises.
Another price tip from Drange is to continue to follow the price of the item (s) you have bought on offer, for a certain time afterwards.
– Some stores have a price guarantee that applies for a short time in the future, and then you can go back and get the difference covered if the item becomes cheaper, she says.
– It is easy to get carried away on sales days, but do not spend more money than you have, Drange encourages.
That’s how much prices go down
In 2020, there was a total price decline – reaching all products in all categories – of approximately 4.5 percent according to statistics from Prisjakt.no.
For mobile phones, the price decrease was 5.5 per cent on average, while for headphones the figure was 5.4 per cent.
However, these are all products gathered together.
25 percent of all products that went down ten percent or more had an average discount of 22.13 percent.
– We need almost up to over ten percent for it to be a good offer, says Vittersø.
What is special this year is that there are higher prices for some goods, so Vittersø is excited to see which products go on sale and how much the decline will be.
– Factors such as inventory status, component shortages and high shipping prices make it uncertain how the stores will price the products that go on sale this year, he says.
Also read: The corona pandemic creates trouble for Black Friday: – Will see increased prices
Categories such as electronics, gadgets, furniture and sports equipment are among the categories that have had the largest price increase during the pandemic. Although we see the light at the end of the tunnel on the corona pandemic, when more and more people have been vaccinated and we can live more as normal, we may have to live with a supply crisis for several years.
When the world’s factories and supply lines closed down last spring, some industries experienced tremendous growth. When everyone had a home office, many needed better equipment at once. At the same time, access to the most important raw materials used for these products was restricted.
Demand was also already on the rise, as more and more advanced products required more and more advanced electronics. Production must therefore be significantly increased.
False offers
Although there are many good offers, it is important to note that some offers are “fake”.
– 11 percent of the products that were on sale during Black Week last year, had risen in price in the period 1 October and 22 November, says Vittersø.
In 2019, nine percent of sales items had risen in price in the weeks before Black Week.
This shows that the pre-price is not necessarily very real – if you look at the price history.
– I think the stores have become better at maintaining prices, and not turn them up just before big sales days, in recent years. It will be exciting to see how it goes this year, he says.
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