The Ultimate Guide For Black Friday & Cyber Monday
Whew, where do I even start? I guess I’ll start with the basics. If your going shopping in store on thanksgiving night I will tell you this, make sure you know WHEN the store your wanting to shop at opens. So lets say the store your wanting to go shopping at opens at six at night, then you better be there at least by five to get in line! I’m so not kidding! The earlier you get there, the better chance you have at getting in first and snagging what your wanting.
Also, items are not in their normal spot. They do try to keep somethings around the same area but most of the time things are in a completely different spot. All black friday deals they normally move to the big open isles and not all the little ones. So every store will release a “map of the store” so you know where the items your wanting will be at. I’ll leave a link to each map below for you to each store that you can download or print off.
People can be very ruthless in store on thanksgiving night. Normally on thanksgiving night, I will go into maybe one or two stores for the one BIG item were getting that year. Such as, last year I went to target to get the Graco 4-ever all in one car seat. I didn’t get there early enough and the line was already wrapped around the building, but I ran my way into the store, and somehow managed to grab the last one. As I was walking to the front of the store I had four women ask me if I was getting it or not. Like really? No I’m just carrying around this huge car seat for nothing. I’ve seen people steal items out of other people’s carts before they even had a chance to check out. Just all kinds of crazy stuff.
I’m not telling you all of this to scare you into not going, these are just things that have happened to me and what I have seen first hand over the years of going. Plus you need to experience it at least once in life! It’s really exhilarating! As I’ve gotten older though, I do most of my shopping online. Technically Cyber Monday starts on the Monday after thanksgiving (December 2nd) but most retailers start their sales at midnight. The minute the clock strikes twelve on the evening of December 1st, it then becomes the 2nd of December and that’s when you need to have them finger tips ready!
What I would suggest is being LOGGED IN to your target account or best buy account or wherever your shopping online at, be logged in, your card already added to your payment methods, and your address already saved as your primary address. That way when you go to check out, your not trying to hurry up and type in all this information because by the time you get done typing in all your info, what your wanting is already going to be sold out by the time you actually click that check out button.
Also, what I normally do is have the web browser open, with all the items in your cart already. That way when 12:01 hits, you can hit the refresh button and it should automatically show the new prices. IF by chance it doesn’t, make sure that the items your wanting are all in your web browsing history. What I mean by this is, when you hit the “back” button, all your items are in a row ready for you to add them to your cart easily, instead of having to type in and search for the item all over again.
If there is one big item that your wanting really bad, I would check out with just that one item, then go back into the web browser and get the rest of your stuff. One year I was ordering Kylie a frozen car to drive around when she was like 3 or 4 years old and was putting other items in my cart, when I realized it had already sold out before I could check out. So if there is that one item that you have to have, put it in your cart, and check out as fast as you can.
Have a list ready! Think about what you are needing or wanting and get those items first. Then you can browse around later. It sucks so bad to have no list and not really knowing what you need or want because then you’ll just buy a whole bunch of crap that you don’t really want or need. Your just buying stuff because it’s black Friday or cyber Monday. So going in with a plan and a list makes it so much easier! And if you happen to find some other little goodies along the way that wasn’t on the list, that’s okay! Grab them as a little bonus!
Another Tip: Earn cash back by making sure you activate your Rakuten cash back so you earn money back on every order you place! You can read my blog post Money Saving Apps to learn how to use it if you don’t already know how.
TARGET BLACK FRIDAY NOV.28-30
Target’s Black Friday Paper Ad
View the Map of Target to know where the items your wanting will be at
WALMART'S DEALS
Walmart’s deals are a little more complicated to understand. They are having pre-black friday deals going on right now. Which means that you can still get a pretty good discount on some items but if you wait until black friday you can get even more off!
Here’s the catch though, on black friday there is a limit on some items. Meaning, when you click on a black friday item, in the description on some items it will say something like “minimum 6 per store” or “minimum 4 per store” which means that there is only that quantity of that item that is going to be “in store”. Once there gone, there gone. You can shop in store for black friday on November 28th at 6pm – November 29th.
If you want to shop online you can do so a day earlier than ever one else and try to get your items so you don’t have to fight the crowd. If your going to shop online, have your items ready in your cart or in a favorites list because once they sell out they normally don’t restock. But always keep checking back for a restock for cyber Monday. You can shop online with Walmart on November 27th at 10pm – November 29th.
You can get a map of the store HERE but make sure that you click on “Find another store” and change it to YOUR Walmart location. You can print the map off or if you have the Walmart app, you can access it inside the app also.
AMAZON'S DEALS
The Amazon Black Friday event is on NOW! It has started a full week ahead of Black Friday! It runs for eight days starting on November 22 – November 29th. Cyber Monday will run from November 30th – December 2nd. So you have two full weeks of deals!! How cool is that?! Another Black Friday tradition Amazon likes to do is their daily lightning deals which are only available for a very limited time or until the product sells out. You can see which deals are live and which ones are coming up on Amazon prime so they do show you which ones are coming up so you can prepare accordingly. Amazon Prime members will get early access to the Black Friday lightning deals.
Based on what Amazon did last year (2018), they more than likely will do a following sale on Tuesday December 3rd which is there “Countdown to Christmas sale”. It features a range of deals which will run right up to midnight on Christmas Eve. But with all these sales and mini sales, you will still find the best sale prices during the four day period of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
I hope this guide helps you on your shopping journey this year! If you have any additional questions with any thing at all either comment below or direct message me on Instagram.
Happy Shopping Babes!