Black Friday 'deals' exposed as duds

The vast majority of Black Friday ‘deals’ are cheaper or the same price at other times of the year, according to new Which? research.

Which? looked at deals on 227 products in last year’s Black Friday sales fortnight. Nine in 10 (92%) of the deals analysed were the same price or cheaper at other times of the year. 

This year, for the first time, we’ve also investigated whether the higher prices used to set the savings against were ever charged in the first place. 

Our investigation reveals the different tactics used by retailers, how the way offers are presented can confuse even the savviest of shoppers, and some very dodgy-looking deals. 

Pricing history sheds light on dubious deals

We looked at 227 deals on popular products advertised by some of the biggest retailers during 2023’s Black Friday sales, and checked their pricing history six months before and six months after the day itself. 

We’ve been running this investigation annually for several years now. In this year's investigation, for the first time ever, every one of the 'deals' we checked was available for the same price or less at other times of the year than on Black Friday itself. 

We also found that:

• Nine in 10 (92%) of the deals analysed were the same price or cheaper at other times of the year compared with any point in the Black Friday fortnight. 
• Around four in 10 deals were cheaper (rather than just the same price) at other times of year than on Black Friday. For example, on Black Friday, Currys was selling the Hisense 43-inch Smart 4K TV with Amazon Alexa for £249 (reduced from £429). But just 15 days after Black Friday it was reduced further, to £229. In fact it never went back up above its Black Friday price during the following six months.
• While you may expect product prices to fall over time, 11% of the products we looked at were cheaper than their Black Friday price in the six months before the big day. For example, on Black Friday the Sage Creatista Pro coffee machine was on sale from John Lewis for £499.95 (down from £699.95). But it was cheaper than this for 32 days in the six months before Black Friday, including just £479.95 four months earlier.

Find out more: how to check if a Black Friday deal is real

How genuine are higher comparison prices?

Key to identifying whether a deal is genuine is how frequently and recently the higher price used to indicate how much you're saving has been charged (if at all). We unpicked the pricing history of the deals we looked at for a year before Black Friday 2023 to see how genuine the higher comparison prices were. 

For six in 10 deals we looked at, the higher price had been in place less than half the time the product was available in the year before the promotion. This included 14 supposed deals where the retailer hadn't charged the higher price at all in the previous 12 months.

Questionable savings we found included:

• The Remington Shea Soft Hair Dryer at Boots – £18.99 on Black Friday, supposedly reduced from £49.99. But it had never been on sale at Boots for this higher price during the previous 12 months. 
• The Garmin Venu 2S smartwatch at John Lewis – £294 on Black Friday with a claimed previous price of £384. However, the highest price it was sold for during the previous 12 months was £349.99, and its price didn't go up to £384 in the following six months either. 

Find out more: top 15 shopping tips for Black Friday

The worst Black Friday deals

Some of the most dubious 'deals' we found include:

1. TOSHIBA 24WK3C63DB TV: Advertised as an ‘Inflation Busting Mega deal’ at Richer Sounds for £139, it had actually been £139 for 80 days straight before Black Friday. Before that it was £10 less, at £129. At no point in the six months before Black Friday was it more than £139.
2. HISENSE GM642XSUK BUILT-IN 60CM GAS HOB: This was £94 at Amazon on Black Friday, with a stated RRP of £129. But it had been only £89 around four months earlier.
3. ORAL-B iO4 ELECTRIC TOOTHBRUSH (+ CASE): This Black Friday deal at Boots was £89 with a claimed previous price of £240. But it had been £240 for just one day in the previous 12 months. Otherwise, the highest price was £95.
4. TOSHIBA UF3D 55-INCH SMART FIRE TV: The Black Friday sale price at Amazon was £318, compared with an RRP of £449. But it hadn’t been sold for anywhere near £449 by Amazon in the 12 months prior. The most we found it on sale for was £369.
5. MORPHY RICHARDS EQUIP TWO SLICE TOASTER: This toaster was advertised by Amazon for £21.87, reduced from an RRP of £29.99. But it had been £20.80 just 59 days before. In fact, it had been cheaper than its Black Friday price for 40 days in the six months prior.
6. SONOS MOVE: This portable smart speaker was £299 on Black Friday at Richer Sounds, supposedly reduced from £399. But it was cheaper than the Black Friday price for 95% of the time in the six months after Black Friday
7. SMEG CONCERT CG92X9 90CM: This dual-fuel range cooker at AO.com was £999 for Black Friday, compared with an RRP of £1,329. But it was cheaper or the same price as the Black Friday deal 73% of the time across the six months before and after.
8. SAMSUNG QE75QN90C 75-INCH TV: This was on sale from Very for £2,599 on Black Friday, reduced from £3,999. But just seven days after Black Friday it was £150 cheaper still, at £2,449.

Are products ever sold at RRP?

All the deals we found at Amazon, and some at AO.com, used a recommended retail price (RRP) to show the deal saving. On the face of it, these look much the same as the higher ‘was’ prices used by many other retailers – but there’s a crucial difference. 

An item doesn’t have to have ever been sold at the RRP by that store; RRPs are simply the amount the manufacturer suggests the product be sold for. 

For example, Amazon advertised the Samsung Series 5+ heat pump tumble dryer for £629.99 on Black Friday last year, setting it against its RRP of £789.99 – a supposed saving of £160. But it hadn’t actually been sold at £789.99 by Amazon in the entire 12 months prior. In fact, the highest price it had reached in that period was £719. 

How easy is it to decode the language of deals?

When we surveyed shoppers about their understanding of deal terminologies, only 62% knew what RRP stands for and only 55% knew what it means. Some 18% incorrectly thought it meant the retailer must have sold the item at that price previously. 

On the face of it, 'was/now' prices appear more straightforward. But when we showed an example of a was/now deal to consumers, 31% assumed the higher price was offered immediately before the promotion. This doesn’t have to be the case – in some of the deals we looked at, the ‘was’ prices were from as far back as 11 months previously. 

Some deals were advertised in even more opaque ways. At Very, we found prices with a strikethrough simply followed by a claimed saving, giving shoppers no information about what the higher figure meant. 

And at Richer Sounds, we found products hyperbolically labelled as ‘inflation-busting megadeal’ or ‘fantastic Black Friday value’. But one so-called ‘inflation-busting megadeal’ had actually inflated by £10 on Black Friday compared with a price less than three months earlier.

• Find out more:how to get the best price when shopping online

Which? calls for action on dodgy deals

There’s too much confusion and scope for dodgy tactics on promotional deals. 

We want retailers to clean up their act, and have issued four key calls for action: 

1. Only those products where the lower price has been in place for less time than the higher price should be promoted as ‘special’ deals.
2. Once an offer has ended, the product shouldn’t continue at the deal price or lower – if it does, the retailer shouldn’t have claimed it was a special offer in the first place.
3. When retailers refer to a ‘was’ price, it should be the most recent price. Stores should publish the dates that the ‘was’ price was in place for.
4. A reasonable number of products should have actually been sold at a quoted ‘was’ price – otherwise it isn’t a meaningful comparison.

We believe shoppers would be more confident they're getting a good deal if retailers followed these simple principles.

• Share your dubious deal experiences: We want to put pressure on retailers by highlighting dodgy-looking deals as part of our wider focus on pricing practices. Use our tool to report dodgy-looking deals to our researchers.

How to get a good deal this Black Friday

• Don't let yourself feel rushed. Great prices on great products are almost invariably repeated again fairly soon after. Remember, retailers want you to feel time-pressured as you’re more likely to spend more and make poor choices. 
• Check pricing history. Many products yo-yo in price, increasing and decreasing in regular cycles. Sites such as PriceRunner and CamelCamelCamel (for Amazon only) show pricing history so you can check whether this applies to the item you want to buy. 
• Focus on price, not claimed savings. As our investigation shows, the latter can sometimes be spurious.
• Let Which? experts help you sort the deals from the duds. While many Black Friday deals aren't all they're cracked up to be, there are always a few genuine bargains to be had. You can keep an eye on our analysis of Black Friday deals as they happen.

How Which? identifies genuine deals

Our expert team trawls through thousands of deals to find you genuinely good prices on genuinely good products. Using pricing history data and our industry-leading market knowledge, we keep an eye on price fluctuations and let you know whether a product is at its cheapest point, based on the past six months of pricing. 

The products we share in our deals pages have all been put under the Which? microscope, meaning we only recommend offers on items we know perform.

• Find out more: top 15 shopping tips for Black Friday

What the retailers say

Amazon said: ‘We offer customers great value year round through price-matching to ensure prices are as low or lower than other retailers, and fantastic seasonal deal events like Black Friday.’ It said that it based savings off validated reference prices customers had recently paid on Amazon or were recently offered by competitors. 

Very said: ‘We’re dedicated to providing great value on a wide variety of products all year round.’

AO said: ‘We always offer our customers great value, and our price match guarantee matches against any other retailer all year round, not just a select few like others. Which’s findings are based on only 2% of Black Friday deals, which misses the point.’

John Lewis said: ‘Customers can find brilliant offers year round. But our reimagined Never Knowingly Undersold brand promise – which matches prices with 25 leading retailers – gives customers absolute confidence.’

Currys said it was the first major retailer to promise none of its 3,000+ Black Friday deals for 2024 had been cheaper in the past six months. It said more than half its Black Friday deals in 2024 would be at their lowest-ever price.

Richer Sounds said Black Friday had evolved into a month-long promotion for many retailers. It said it made clear anything marked as ‘Fantastic Black Friday Value’ may have been at a lower price previously, but still represented fantastic value, adding ‘Inflation-busting mega deals’ were separate to Black Friday. 

Boots said: ‘In 2023 we offered discounts on over 21,000 products across the Black Friday period. Being part of that promotional programme does not exclude [these] being on offer at other times throughout the year.’

Our research

Our analysis was based on 227 appliance and tech deals on eight major retailers’ websites on Black Friday, 24 Nov 2023. We used an independent pricing provider to analyse their pricing history. Prices include regular discounts but not multibuys or loyalty promotions. 

Survey results based on a Sep 2024 survey of 2,000 members of the public by Deltapoll for Which?. Data weighted to be representative of the UK population (aged 18+).