When is it best to buy – on Black Friday or pre-Christmas? Here's what MSE found
If you're hoping to bag a bargain on Christmas presents, you might be better off buying on Black Friday rather than waiting for last-minute pre-Christmas sales. It comes as new MoneySavingExpert.com research reveals that over two-thirds of 50 popular items were cheaper on Black Friday in 2023 compared to in the lead-up to Christmas.
There are three traditional discount periods at this time of year:
Black Friday – this falls on 29 November in 2024, though discounts often now start from early November. This is where we tend to see the strongest offers of the year, including blanket discounts, site-wide codes and 'up to' sales off 'everything'. See our Black Friday deals round-up for the latest updates and analysis.
Pre-Christmas sales – typically referred to as 'Boxing Day sales'. These tend to begin just before Christmas, which is handy if you've last-minute shopping to do.
January sales – it's very difficult to compare these as they tend to be retailers shifting surplus stock, rather than store-wide discounts. There can be deeper discounts offered here as the demand for Christmas presents is gone.
Our analysis below focuses on comparing Black Friday and pre-Christmas prices.
ITV's The Martin Lewis Money Show Live – Tuesday 19 November 2024
From The Martin Lewis Money Show Live on Tuesday 19 November 2024 courtesy of ITV. All rights reserved. Watch the full episode on ITVX.
Jeanette Kwakye (Martin's co-presenter): "When is the optimal time to buy Christmas gifts? Often I find items are discounted before I even give the gift. And are gift vouchers to be avoided?"
Martin Lewis: "Optimum time to buy Christmas gifts is in January. [Audience laughter.] Generally, in the January sales, it's cheapest. Two ways to do that; buy them very early or give someone an IOU if you're brave enough, and say I'll buy it once the prices are lower, then we're not held hostage by this retail festival that we seem to live in.
"But if you want a more practical answer, we've actually just done a study using 50 items of 'was it cheaper to buy on Black Friday or in the pre-Christmas sales that come later?'.
"70% of items were cheaper on Black Friday, 12% were cheaper on pre-Christmas sales and the other 18% were equal. So if you're going to be buying before Christmas at this time of year, Black Friday is the time that you want to be buying.
"I know it gets, you know, badmouthed, but as I'll be running through the 'Festive Forecaster', if you get the right item and it's something that you needed, it is the time to buy.
"As for gift vouchers, I'm not a fan. Two reasons. One, they have use-by dates people don't know about, which means they're not valid. Two, if the company goes bust, they are worthless. So obviously, you know, if you're going – Amazon is very unlikely to go bust – but if you know a local restaurant, if you're giving gift vouchers, there is a real risk with that.
"The best form of gift voucher for me, it's about this big, it's flappy, it's foldy, it's got a picture of the Queen or soon to be the King on it, and it's cash, because it's flexible everywhere. You can use it everywhere and people will take it. But yeah, I'm not a fan of gift vouchers unless it's a big firm that isn't going to go bust and then you tell people when the use by date is."
Transcript of what Martin Lewis said on the show…
The biggest discounts ARE available on Black Friday
We looked at the prices of 50 popular items on Black Friday 2023 and on 19 December 2023. We found that the biggest discounts were available on Black Friday – here's an overview of our results:
| Black Friday | Pre-Christmas (1) |
|---|---|---|
When items were cheapest (2) | 35 items (70%) | 6 items (12%) |
Average discount (3) | 29% | 19% |
(1) Pre-Christmas price taken on 19 December 2023. (2) Nine items (18%) had the same price on both dates. (3) This is the 'mean' discount.
We also tracked the price post-Christmas on 28 December 2023. On this date, we found five items were cheaper than both Black Friday and pre-Christmas, with an average discount of 17% across the 50 items.
Martin Lewis: 'Waiting to see if an item gets cheaper will more often than not be fruitless'
The idea that Black Friday discounts are a complete washout is not backed up by the data, based on the impartial research we've done. If the item you've been planning to buy has a decent discount on Black Friday, and you need it by Christmas, the chances are you should buy it – waiting to see if it gets cheaper in the pre-Christmas sales will more often than not be fruitless.
Clearly with 10,000s shops and over 100,000s items discounted there is no hard and fast rule, but the probability is it will work based on store discount patterns over the past few years.
However, it's worth noting that marketing patterns are constantly iterating. Years ago, discounts ran across November and December, then as Black Friday became popular in the UK, deals started to concertina around that date. In the past couple of years we've seen that loosen though, with the discount date range spreading and I expect to see that pattern continue this year.
The products with the lowest prices on Black Friday
Here's our full list of products and prices tracked – though there is no guarantee we'll see the same trends this year, and prices can change at any time.
Product – RRP (1) | Cheapest Black Friday price (2) | Cheapest 19 December price (2) |
|---|---|---|
Price cheapest on Black Friday | ||
Amazon Echo Dot 5th Generation (Deep Sea Blue) – £54.99 | £21.99 | £24.99 |
Amazon Echo Dot 5th Generation (Glacier White) – £54.99 | £21.99 | £24.99 |
Amazon Fire TV Stick – £44.99 | £24.99 | £34.99 |
Amazon Kindle Oasis – £229.99 | £174.99 | £179 |
Amazon Kindle (2022 release) with ads – £84.99 | £69 | £84.99 |
Apple AirPods Max – £499 | £479 | £499 |
Apple Airpods Pro USB-C (2nd generation) – £229 | £199 | £219 |
Apple iPad Air 10.9" 64GB (2022) – £649 | £579 | £628 |
Apple iPad Pro 12.9" 128GB (2022) – £1,249 | £1,179 | £1,249 |
Apple Watch SE GPS, 44mm – £249 | £199 | £239 |
Braun Silk-epil 5 5-620 epilator – £99.99 | £51.70 | £51.99 |
CeraVe SA Smoothing Cleanser, 473ml – £23.50 | £14.44 | £17.79 |
DIOR Addict Lip Glow Oil – £33 | £25.60 | £32 |
Dyson Airwrap Origin Multi-Styler Silver – £399.99 | £349.99 | £399.99 |
Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream, 50ml – £29 | £18.05 | £22.92 |
Exploding Kittens Card Game – £19.99 | £11.49 | £19.99 |
Fitbit Sense 2 – £269.99 | £177 | £179 |
Fitbit Versa 4 – £199 | £144 | £148.59 |
Ghd Air Hair Dryer – £119 | £88.99 | £119 |
Ghd Original Hair Straightener – £129 | £107 | £129 |
Google Nest Hub (2nd generation) – £89.99 | £44 | £54.99 |
Google Nest Mini (2nd generation) – £49 | £22 | £49 |
Google Nest Pro Google G3AL9 Nest Cam – £179.99 | £124 | £177.99 |
Gymshark Adapt Camp Seamless Ribbed Leggings – £50 | £15 | £35 |
Kärcher K5 Power Control Car & Home – £414.99 | £291.99 | £389 |
Kärcher WV5 Plus N Window Vac – £99.99 | £55.99 | £74.99 |
Ninja Foodi MAX Dual Zone Air Fryer AF400UK – £249.99 | £169 | £179 |
Nintendo Switch OLED (Neon Red & Blue) – £309.99 | £299 | £309 |
Nintendo Switch OLED (White) – £309.99 | £279 | £290 |
PlayStation 5 Standard Console – £479.99 | £349.99 | £429.95 |
Ring Doorbell (2nd generation) – £99.99 | £49.99 | £59.99 |
Ring Video Wired Doorbell – £59.99 | £34.99 | £49 |
Shark FlexStyle 5-in-1 Air Styler & Hair Dryer – £269.99 | £239.99 | £269.99 |
Shark Lightweight 2-in-1 cordless vacuum WV361UK – £199.99 | £169 | £180 |
Yves Saint Laurent Black Opium Eau de Parfum, 90ml – £125 | £83.70 | £100 |
Price cheapest on 19 December | ||
Apple Watch 2022 SE (2nd generation) GPS, 40mm – £219 | £219 | £209 |
Hismile V34 Colour Corrector Serum, 30ml – £19 | £11 | £10 |
Meta Quest 2 – Advanced All-In-One VR Headset - 128GB – £399.99 | £248.45 | £227 |
Nintendo Switch Lite Yellow – £199.99 | £183 | £176.95 |
Nintendo Switch (Neon Red & Blue) – £259.99 | £249.99 | £239 |
Oral B Pro 3 3900 Electric Toothbrush - Twin Pack – £70 | £57 | £55.51 |
Same price on Black Friday and 19 December | ||
Apple AirPods with wireless charging case (3rd Generation) – £169 | £149 | £149 |
Apple Watch Series 9 (41mm) – £399 | £379 | £379 |
Chanel No5 Eau de Parfum, 100ml – £136 | £108.80 | £108.80 |
Davidoff The Game Eau de Toilette, 100ml – £56 | £23 | £23 (3) |
Dyson V8 Vacuum – £329.99 | £229 | £229 |
Fitbit Ace 3 for Kids – £49.99 | £49 | £49 |
Tapo Smart Bulb – £11.99 | £7.99 | £7.99 |
Tassimo by Bosch Coffee Machine – £106 | £34 | £34 |
Tower T17088 Vortx 9L Duo Basket Air Fryer – £139.99 | £98.99 | £98.99 |
(1) For non-Amazon products, the RRP was taken from major retailers' websites. For Amazon products, the RRP was taken from Amazon's own website, but we checked this against past maximum prices on CamelCamelCamel.
(2) Cheapest prices sourced from major retailers' websites. The retailers included vary by product.
(3) This product was out of stock, but the price was still listed as £23.
How to find the best deals
Before you spend, ask yourself, do I need it? Can I afford it? It's not a saving if you weren't going to buy it anyway. Use our free Money Mantras card to help you stop spending when you shouldn't. And of course, consider Martin's annual plea on whether it's time to ban unnecessary Christmas presents?
If you do still plan to buy gifts, here's a quick summary of our top tips:
If you have your eye on something, check prices NOW. Then when it comes to Black Friday, you'll know if the 'discounts' are really cheaper. Check prices at the retailer you were planning to buy from, and do a wider price comparison using free tools, such as Google Shopping, PriceRunner, PriceSpy and the Amazon price-tracking tool CamelCamelCamel.
Just because an item is on sale on Black Friday doesn't mean you can't get it cheaper at another time of year. In 2023, price comparison website PriceSpy found that 22% of products were cheaper at the start of November than they were on Black Friday.
Check if retailers will match prices. For example, Curry's has said that if it lowers the price of an eligible Black Friday deal before Monday 2 December, you can claim a refund for the price difference until Monday 9 December.
John Lewis, meanwhile, has brought back its 'Never Knowingly Undersold' price promise, which means as well as regularly price-checking against its 25 main competitors, it'll refund the difference if its price can be beaten in the seven days after you made the purchase.If prices are the same at multiple retailers, check for added benefits. Such as John Lewis's two-year warranty, or free delivery.
Make the most of extended return periods. Most retailers offer extended returns over the Christmas period. So you could pounce on a discounted Christmas present now and return it if the price drops in the run-up to Christmas and buy it again. However, ensure you check the retailer's policy FIRST. If you're buying in store, retailers don't legally have to refund you simply because you've changed your mind.
You can also see our Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals page for updates and analysis, including our predictions about the deals to come. You can also use our Christmas Deals Predictor tool to help you plan when's best to purchase – we use our insight to calculate when to expect sales and discounts at major retailers.
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3 December 2024
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