It’s officially Fall and Pumpkin Spice Lattes are now our country’s preferred beverage of choice. It’s only a matter of time before it’s time to tackle to albatross of Black Friday shopping. 

Black Friday shopping can be extremely stressful with people crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in long lines just to get inside the door and another line just to check out at a register. Wouldn’t it be great to find a way to avoid all that hassle and still get the best deal?

Do Your Research

There are a number of Black Friday-themed websites that usually list Black Friday flyers from all the major retailers. It can be rather daunting to glean through them all, so just chose the stores you think would sell the items you’re looking for this Christmas shopping season. Also, look up Best Black Friday Deals on Google and you can usually find lists of some of the other sales from stores you may have overlooked. I would suggest Slickdeals.net as a nice resource for the best sales and coupon codes for Black Friday 2019.

Online vs In -Store

Once you’ve narrowed down the stores you want to focus on, figure out if they have in-store doorbusters or if their sales will also be available online. I used to be the guy out there waiting at 4am outside a big electronics store waiting to save a couple hundred dollars on a TV…until I found out that the same store gave out the same deal on their website. That was the moment that I decided to do my research and possibly save myself the extra stress of doing all my shopping in-store.

Online shopping on Black Friday keeps increasing every single year, but sometimes in-store is the way to go. It’s also important if you think that supplies of an item are limited and could sell out. Electronics are one of the items that tend to fly off the shelves and can be limited. There will be items that you can only score in-store and won’t be available online. Luckily, that is becoming less of the norm these days as most sales are also available online. The only issue is selling out before you’ve had a chance to add it to your virtual shopping cart.

I’ve also noticed that most Black Friday deals for toys are usually available online as well. There are always a few exceptions due to certain toys becoming extremely hard to find. There are always a few toys every Christmas that become insanely hard to find due to high demand. The hot Christmas toys are the ones you may need to wait in-line outside of a store to guarantee you will walk away with one. 

Do Comparison Shopping Before Black Friday

Televisions are an extremely popular sale on Black Friday. Retailers usually have big sales and it’s impossible to really do research on the spot. You should be completely knowledgeable by the time you’re ready to purchase it on Black Friday. You can do research beforehand online or even in person. If you’re sure you want a certain TV, but want to wait until a Black Friday sale, take a trip to the store and look at it now. You may find that you want to pay a few dollars more for a certain feature that isn’t available in the cheapest Black Friday markdown. I also read a lot of online reviews for any big purchase. You can use this strategy with any major purchase on Black Friday.

Map Our Your Black Friday Trip

Now with more and more retailers opening up on Thanksgiving or after midnight, you really need to map and schedule out your Black Friday shopping trip. One year I was able to go to a single shopping center in Fort Wayne and hit up Gamestop, Walmart and Target. I didn’t have to wait in traffic, I just parked in a spot and everything was within a 1/4 mile.

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About the Author…

Bobby Roberts (otherwise known as Sweetbob) is the creator of ‘America’s White Boy’ and contributor at Project Shanks. His writing has been featured on ESPN’s ‘SportsNation’, Sports Illustrated’s Hot Clicks, Guyspeed, and various other sites. You can follow him on Twitter at @Sweetbob.