Rule №1. Make a shopping list

The most important step of preparation. Make a shopping list in order of importance. This will set a benchmark for the sale and help you buy the items you really need.

The list should consist of two parts. In the first part, specify short-term shopping goals, in the second – long-term. To do this, you need to sort through your closets and see if you have a basic closet, what things you lack right now, and what you will definitely need later.

For example, you don’t have a winter jacket or your computer, which is necessary for work and study, is malfunctioning. This can be added to the list of essentials. And for spring you can now buy stylish sneakers or a new handbag of a fashionable designer. “Friday” is a good opportunity to make many of your pending purchases.

Rule №2. Determine a budget

Decide how much you are willing to spend without sacrificing your family budget. In advance, transfer 80% of this amount to a charge card. It is better to keep the remaining 20% in cash in case you cannot resist a particularly favorable offer in an offline store.

Rule №3: Research the prices

The only way to find the perfect discount is to monitor prices on different websites. Therefore, before you start shopping, surf the Internet or go for reconnaissance in offline stores, study the prices of things you are interested in, look at brand catalogs.

Sometimes sellers lure shopaholics with banners with impressive discounts – 70-80% of the original price. In fact, it may turn out that the product is either no longer available, or its cost was inflated before the sale.

Rule №4. Make a route map of stores

To avoid searching all the stores and wasting time during the sale days, select online and offline sites that have already announced their participation in the “Black Friday” in advance.

Rule №5. Start with luxury

On Friday, you can afford to buy things that you can’t afford on normal days. If New Year’s or summer sales are leftover collections that the store wants to get rid of, then during “Friday” you can find universal quality things that are forever in fashion: good shoes, outerwear, cashmere sweaters.

Start your shopping with the more expensive stores you’ve been eyeing for a while. Treat yourself to a couple of quality items instead of a dozen cheap ones from the mass-market. Going to inexpensive stores with screaming discounts and a large motley assortment is better to make in the last turn – they imperceptibly eat up not only money, but also the strength to continue shopping. Remember that the benefit is when you need this product even without a discount.

Rule №6. Use promo codes

A promo code is a combination of letters and numbers that entitles you to a discount in an online store. With the help of such “secret codes” from stores on “Black Friday” you can make a discount on the goods even more or get a gift. Promo codes are available on partner aggregator sites, which can be found through a search engine.

Rule №7. Avoid marketing traps

Sometimes the store offers real discounts, but keeps silent that at a favorable price he sells only a few copies of the product, which are dispersed in the first hours of the sale. But the retailer has already accomplished its first task – luring you into the store. Now, hoping to keep you coming back, he’ll offer a few other similar products and related items.

Shoppers appreciate a product more if they feel it is in short supply. Therefore, on sale days they have increased impulsiveness: the time factor is in effect. The essence of “Black Friday” is built on this. Do not forget that the deficit at sales is mostly artificial. And remember that the anecdote – “buy two down jackets for the price of three and get one as a gift” – is not an anecdote, but a marketing technique.

Rule №8. Make returns

If you still went into a frenzy and together with the right iron bought a “beautiful floor lamp almost for free”, and then found out that there are already two of them at home, then just give the goods back. Unplanned things bought at the promo can be returned in the usual way. The main thing is to keep the receipt and not to violate the integrity of the goods. Remember that if a thing has become cheaper, it does not mean that it has become more necessary.

Rule №9. Use cashback

It will help you get back some of the money you spent on Black Friday shopping. Study the cashback offers of your bank. On average, you can get from 1% to 10% of the purchase price back to your account. But there are positions from partners of the bank, the return on which reaches 30%.

Rule №10. Do not take loans

Set aside money for Black Friday in advance. So the sale madness will pass easier for the budget.

Sellers at sales actively attract to their promotions and banks, which are ready to provide financial assistance to all participants of sales. Of course, not for free. Do not take out loans on Black Friday in the hope that the discounts will repay the interest. They won’t. After all, in this case, “saved” does not equal “earned”.

In conclusion

Stores will do everything to make customers feel happy and confident that they are buying cheap. The main thing is to approach their offers with intelligence and logic. After all, Black Friday sales are not guaranteed gifts, but rather a lottery. So you need to make some effort to get discounts and make purchases as efficiently, economically and with pleasure as possible.