This post comes from Louis Ramirez at partner site Deal News.
November is the ultimate shopping month for deal hunters. Not only will you find above-average sales every week, but this month you also get to shop Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
These days represent the ultimate trifecta for bargain hunters, with price lows that you simply don’t see throughout the rest of the year. However, not every sale you come across in November will offer true price lows. Thus, we’re here to tell you what you should buy this month, what will be cheaper next month, and what you should avoid at all costs.
Prepare for an explosion of kitchen deals
Whether you’re a casual cook or an everyday chef, November is the absolute best time to buy kitchen goods and appliances. Even high-end devices like KitchenAid mixers and Pyrex container sets will see extraordinary deals. Last year, a whopping 44 percent of kitchen deals earned our coveted Editors’ Choice seal, meaning that they were at their lowest price point ever. By comparison, only 18 percent of kitchen deals generally get that distinction throughout most of the year. Look for deals from stores like Amazon, Sears and Wal-Mart.
Now is the time to make that major appliance purchase
From Dyson vacuums to washer and dryer units, November is the month you want to make your major appliance purchase. Black Friday week in particular will offer an abundance of deals on laundry units, vacuums, dishwashers and refrigerators. The best deals will come from Sears, Best Buy, Home Depot and Lowe’s. Also keep an eye out for significant discounts on drills and hand tools, from stores like Home Depot, Sears, Harbor Freight Tools and Ace Hardware. Some hand-tool deals may require in-store pickup, otherwise you can expect the usual free shipping discounts to apply.
Opt for the iPad mini 4, not the iPad Pro
Although we don’t have an exact launch date, Apple gave the impression that its new iPad Pro will be out in time for Black Friday. However, because it’s such a new device and essentially a new category for Apple, your chances of scoring a deal on the iPad Pro are slim-to-none. Even if a retailer decides to discount the tablet, don’t expect anything substantial. Instead, look for deals on the recently released iPad mini 4, which is essentially an iPad Air 2 in a mini’s chassis, or if you require a bigger screen, the iPad Air 2. Last November brought a deluge of iPad deals with both the iPad mini and iPad Air 2 receiving $100 off.
Android and Windows tablets will hit rock bottom
If you don’t want to invest a lot of money on a tablet, November is an ideal time to buy a budget tablet. Off-brand Android tablets will drop to as low as $20, whereas Windows tablets, excluding the Surface, will hit around $45.
If you want to spend even less, you could opt for refurbished units, which we expect to sell for $15 and $30, respectively. However, for a better tablet experience, it will be hard to top Amazon’s latest $50 Fire tablet. Moreover, you can expect to see deals on previous-generation Fire tablets in the $45 price range.
End of year apparel sales bring stackable coupons
November apparel sales are easy to predict because retailers tend to offer similar deals to the ones they had the previous year. That means you can expect the average apparel deal to shave 54 percent off, whereas the best sales will take up to 80 percent off. Coupons, of which there will be many, will take as much as 60 percent off. However, stackable coupons will be a little more moderate, taking between 20 to 30 percent off. One thing to keep in mind is that online retailers will start their Black Friday clothing deals early in the week, so don’t wait until Black Friday to do your clothes shopping. Instead, start on the Monday of that week.
Look for console deals you’ll actually want
Sony gave the PlayStation 4 its first ever price cut in early October, shaving its price to $349, which is on par with Microsoft’s Xbox One pricing. Here at DealNews, we had already seen deals lower than that for both consoles, and now that Black Friday has arrived, we expect to see the best bundles of the year. Look for bundles that offer not just one, but two free games. And make sure you do the math. If each game in the bundle comes out to less than $60, then you’re getting a good deal.
Some shoppers may be tempted to purchase refurbished consoles in order to save some money, but depending on your budget, they may not offer the best value. We predict refurbished/used Xbox One and PS4 consoles will sell for around $250. However, new bundles (with up to two free games) will sell for about $300, which makes the latter the better value in the long run, because many of the refurb units don’t include games.
Make your Roku purchase in December
November is an excellent month for most consumer electronics, with the exception of some streaming set-top boxes. The Roku set-top box, for instance, may see slightly better deals in December than in November, especially the newer Roku 4 model. While you may see modest deals in November, which take $10 to $15 off, December could see better deals because the Roku unit could come with a gift card.
Wait for December to travel
According to Hopper, a site dedicated to tracking airfare prices, domestic flights will be up to 5 percent cheaper this fall and winter than they were last year. However, whereas Hopper predicts November prices will be in the $252 range, they predict December rates will be slightly cheaper, averaging just $244. So if you can, buy your travel tickets in December and not November.
TV buying season is finally here
Month after month, we’ve warned shoppers to stay away from TV deals. Well, now is the time to upgrade to a new HDTV. For the most value, we suggest looking at deals on 60-inch sets. We predict these sets will drop as low as $549. Meanwhile, 32-inch TVs will also see massive price cuts dropping to just $70. And if you think Black Friday is all about cheap TVs, think again. We predict name-brand 55-inch 4K sets will drop to $650. Already we’ve seen a new price low on a 60-inch Vizio 4K HDTV, which Dell Home’s confirmed Black Friday circular is advertising at $800, an incredible price low for any name-brand 4K TV of this size.
Mainstream laptops will dominate doorbuster sales
In addition to TVs, Black Friday is also traditionally the best time of the year to make a laptop purchase, and this year we predict that 15-inch mainstream laptops will provide the best value. These machines will provide significantly better hardware than their bargain-bin counterparts at just twice the price of about $300. Look for machines that use either Intel’s current generation Core i5 processor (Skylake) or ones that use the still-respectable Broadwell Core i5 CPU.
Bargain-bin laptops will also see incredible lows, but deals will remain close to last year’s prices in the $149 range. Extreme budget laptops, however, may once again drop as low as $99, but keep in mind these machines will offer inferior hardware usually consisting of an 11-inch screen, Celeron or Atom processor, and just 2GB of RAM. They’re fine for simple tasks like Web browsing and social media, but can struggle with more powerful tasks like streaming HD video or multitasking.
For Apple fans, Black Friday is also an excellent time to buy a new MacBook Air. (Just be sure to steer clear of any deals from the Apple Store, which are always undercut by authorized Apple resellers.) Last year, stores slashed the price of the entry-level 11-inch MacBook Air to $780 (or $220 off), but this year we predict MacBook Air prices will drop lower, to $730. Also expect to see up to $300 off the current-gen MacBook Pro Retina. Apple’s luxury 12-inch MacBook, however, is unlikely to see any significant price cuts. To date, we’ve seen retailers on eBay take $100 off the machine, dropping its price to $1,199.
What’s your plan for November shopping? Share with us in comments below or on our Facebook page.
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