Strategies to score your best Cyber Monday deals
The world of retail used to explode the day after Thanksgiving. To shoppers of a certain age, the term “Black Friday” used to mean a lot of things, including early mornings, long lines, and near-riots in store aisles. But since the rise of ecommerce, Black Friday turned into Cyber Monday. Lately, there have been more and more days throughout the year that see online retailers holding large price markdowns—but Cyber Monday still reigns supreme.
With all of the pomp and circumstance around online shopping and deal days, you need to be prepared. It’s easy to be distracted by all of the emails and ads you see about sales and end up buying things you don’t want, or even worse, grabbing items that aren’t even discounted.
With Cyber Monday coming up, we’ll help you create a strategy to find deals on the items you want and resist the urge to make a coupon-cutting miscue. If you need inspiration for finding home-based tech and other deals to set your sights on, check out our list of great Cyber Monday Tech. Now onto the Cyber Monday strategies.
1. Give yourself a Cyber Monday budget
Setting a budget is something we talk about a lot, and we believe it’s just as important on Cyber Monday as it is when buying a home. Knowing how much you have to spend before you start shopping will help you avoid regretting your purchases.
Here are two ways to go about setting your budget:
- Identify your overall spend, and add up all your expenditures as you work your way through your gift-giving list
- Give yourself a budget for each person in your family (allocating more for your spouse and children and less for nieces and nephews, for example)
The larger question is how much of your overall household budget you should spend, and only you can answer this. But one last piece of advice on this important topic is this—keep your budget on the conservative side and give yourself a little wiggle room. Not that you’ll want to use that extra room, but it’s incredibly easy for all those Cyber Monday expenses to pile up. And shipping handling can really creep up on you.
2. Identify your targets
Cyber Monday is a great day to get holiday gifts for your family and friends. It’s not a great day to hope you’ll find something that catches your eye or pick out a gift that “made me think of you.” Create a list of items for each person on your list. Even better, have them create a wish list for you. While some families think it’s gauche to create a gift wish list, is does make life easier on the gift giver. Especially on such a busy shopping day.
3. Bookmark your online stores
Some of the larger ecommerce websites are easy enough to remember. Heck, you may even have their app on your phone. But for some of the smaller shops and boutiques, make sure that you have their site bookmarked beforehand. This will remind you to check and see if they have deals, as not every retailer is able to offer big price cuts on the big day.
4. Follow your stores on social
Social media is often where your favorite online retailer will announce their deals. Some may even highlight deals on different items throughout the day, so it’s very helpful to keep an eye on their social media feed.
A newer trend that larger retailers are incorporating is timed deals, where they be offering a discounted price on an item for only a few hours or until it sells out. This is where following them on social really could come in handy. You’ll be the first to know if a gift you’re looking for has a deal on it.
5. Sign up for newsletters
Speaking of keeping an eye on your favorite ecommerce sites, many of them make it easy for you by offering a newsletter. By subscribing, you’ll be among the first to hear about upcoming sales at each of your favorite online stores. And many will offer a discount just for subscribing. Not only that, retailers’ online newsletters are often one of the first places they’ll offer discounts and coupons.
6. Look for gift codes first
How often have you been checking out of an ecommerce site and decided to do a quick search for a “coupon code” for that store or that item? If you’re like many online shoppers, it’s probably close to every time.
It doesn’t hurt to check for a coupon code, right? Well, if you’re looking to make the most of as many Cyber Monday deals as you can, that one last internet search will slow you down. Our advice? Gather as many coupon and discount codes as you can before you start shopping. Not only will it save you time, but it will also help you prioritize what to buy.
This is another benefit of following your favorite online stores on social and subscribing to their newsletter—they’ll often share these codes with you before the big day.
7. Know your return policies
Some retailers offer free returns, some don’t. And sometimes, the store won’t offer returns at all, depending on the item. Knowing about the store’s return policy before you hit the Buy button will help you make better shopping decisions.
Perhaps you found a sweater that you think would look great on Cousin Eric, but you’re not sure if it’s the right size. Or color. Or if it would be something Cousin Eric would wear. If you know that the seller offers free returns, you may go ahead and get it and you could encourage Cousin Eric to update his style. But if the seller doesn’t have a flexible return policy, perhaps you keep looking. That’s why it’s great to know these things before you buy.
8. Automate price comparison
There are quite a few price comparison websites and even apps that you can add to your internet browser that will automatically tell you if you’re getting a good deal on a gift. Set up one of these before you start to help avoid paying top dollar on the biggest deal day of the year.
9. Avoid suspicious sites
Remember that the lowest price isn’t always the best deal. There are plenty of poorly run and downright scammy sites on the internet, that will sell you an item then never send it or send you something of lesser quality. Or they won’t be able to get you the present in time for the celebration. Or worst of all, will take your credit card or personal information and do nefarious things with it.
Always take a look at who you’re buying from. If you don’t know the site, do a quick search of the sites name with the word “review” or “scam” next to it to see if anyone before you has had a bad experience on the site. And never enter payment information onto a site that doesn’t have a URL that starts with “https.” That “s” particularly lets you know that it’s a secured page.
10. Shop privately
Most likely, your web browser has an option that will let you browse privately or incognito. This is a mostly effective way to mask your identity from retailers. Doing this can help with two things:
- You may find yourself eligible for pop up deals that you wouldn’t have received based on your browsing or purchase history
- This will help cut back on ads for the stores and products that you’ve already looked at (who wants to see an ad for the same purse your bought for Aunt Dee follow you around the internet for the next two weeks?)
11. Use a rewards card if you have one
Shopping with a credit or debit card that offers you points, cash-back or some other reward when you make purchases is a great way to ease the financial sting of shopping. And when you’re saving money with Cyber Monday deals, and you’re getting rewarded for it from your financial institution, it’s a win-win.
12. Finally, keep an eye on your accounts
Just to be safe, keep an eye on your bank and credit card accounts in the days after Cyber Monday. This is a busy time of year for more than just holiday shopping—it’s also a busy time of year for fraud. If something did happen, you want to catch it early.
Each year, Cyber Monday changes and evolves. As we write this, there’s no telling what tech trends will get the most deals and which retailers will offer the most markdowns. That’s why it’s so important to start with a strategy that can help you maximize your dealmaking ability and set yourself up to be most impressive gift giver this holiday season.