Martin Lewis warns anyone doing Black Friday or Christmas shopping

James Rodger

19 November 2024 at 0:45 pm·2-min read

The BBC and ITV star's team have shared a blog post titled: "When is it best to buy – on Black Friday or pre-Christmas? Here's what MSE found." — -Credit: (Image: Reach Publishing Services Limited)

Martin Lewis has issued a warning to anyone doing Black Friday or Christmas shopping. The BBC and ITV star's team have shared a blog post titled: "When is it best to buy – on Black Friday or pre-Christmas? Here's what MSE found."

"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," MSE said. "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."

Mr Lewis said: "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 tens of thousands of 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 infamous Black Friday sale takes place every year at the end of November with prices expected to drop before the actual day - November 29. No longer just one day, consumers hunting down a deal will have until December 2, or so-called Cyber Monday, to make the most of this particular opportunity.

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