The Black Friday Podcast

Happy Cyber Monday! Today is the day that e-tailers offer their best deals on their websites. I know, I know, it’s no fun when you don’t have to stand in line in the freezing cold for hours and then wait in the checkout line for an hour, too. But I think you’ll manage somehow.

That was obviously a very tiny selection of the deals available today, and many more sites are participating. Be sure to check out each site for its Cyber Monday deals.

For more info, check out the Cyber Monday pages on GottaDeal, Black Friday Ads, and DealTaker.

And if you miss the hustle and bustle of Black Friday, go stand outside in front of your door for four hours before you try and buy anything.

The Black Friday Podcast is officially declaring today “Rebate Sunday.”

Rebate Sunday will occur on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and Black Friday each year: November 25, 2007, November 30, 2008, and so on.

Rebate Sunday is the day to take the time to fill out your rebates and get them ready to mail in. Read your rebates carefully, fill out all the forms properly, and send them exactly what they ask for — and always make a complete set of copies of everything you send in. You never know when you’ll need the proof.

Don’t forget — if you got that awesome Black Friday deal but you don’t send in the rebate . . . then you didn’t get that awesome Black Friday deal.

It’s the day after Black Friday, and there are 370 days until next year. This is the longest possible wait until the next Black Friday in terms of the number of days.

This scenario would seem longer on a non-leap year. For instance, BF 2012 will be on November 23, but the next BF won’t be until November 29, 2013. This year, Black Friday will land on November 28 (seemingly a day earlier) but this time span includes February 29, so the number of days remains the same.

Hopefully you bought everything you’ll need for the next 370 days!

Thanksgiving is officially over, and you know what that means: Black Friday has begun!

But what are you doing reading this? Get out there and get in line!!!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Just one more day until Black Friday.

Be sure to check out the websites for your favorite Black Friday stores, as some deals may also be available online. That’s much easier than standing in line all morning!

Also, don’t forget to stop in at KMart today for KMart’s Thanksgiving Day sale.

Enjoy your turkey and the rest of your Thanksgiving dinner, and get rested up in preparation for the big day tomorrow!

Visitors to the GottaDeal.com Forum this morning got a scare when the forums were taken down due to routine maintenance.

During a scheduled forum upgrade overnight, the staff placed a frightening yet humorous message on their outage page:

Due to legal action, the forum is now closed
No, just kidding. Seriously, we’re just doing an upgrade of the forum software. It could take a few hours, so find something better to do with your time until then. Maybe grab a book. Nobody reads anymore. Why is that? Oh well. See you in a few hours.

When I checked again several minutes later, a more prominent message was displayed above, informing visitors that the site was undergoing maintenance.

Good one, GottaDeal. You got me for a solid five seconds . . . but can you blame me for being fooled? With companies like Wal-Mart getting more and more aggressive against Black Friday websites each year, it’s just a matter of time until this isn’t a joke. Scary, isn’t it?

Slickdeals.net released the Best Buy Black Friday scans on their forum today.

There’s plenty more, so be sure to check out the ad scans linked above.

As usual, expect a large number of customers lining up at Best Buy this year.

The Black Friday ad scans for Circuit City have now hit the internet, thanks to SlickDeals.net.

Definitely take some time to check out the full Circuit City Black Friday ad scans for plenty more deals, including sales on many smaller items, too.

In an unprecedented move, Wal-Mart sent preemptive cease and desist orders to the large Black Friday websites via the legal firm Baker & Hostetler LLP.

From this action, we can presume that:

• Wal-Mart believes that competitors will alter their Black Friday sales based on the content of leaked Wal-Mart sales.
• Wal-Mart believes that competitors can only obtain the leaked information from a Black Friday website.
• Wal-Mart does not appreciate diligent Black Friday shoppers who seek out ads early.

And really, why should Wal-Mart appreciate the diligent shopper? The business of Black Friday is based on a few basic principles, but the two greatest ones are these:

1. Many shoppers will buy more than just the best bargains while shopping on Black Friday.
2. Many shoppers will never send in their rebates on rebated items.

Since diligent Black Friday shoppers scope out only the best deals, rarely buy much else, and send in all the rebates, we don’t fall into their moneymaking traps. And that’s exactly the way we like it.

I declare a boycott on Wal-Mart this Black Friday. This doesn’t affect Wal-Mart much: Any such boycott will not affect Wal-Mart in any substantial way because most of the uninformed Black Friday shoppers head to Wal-Mart or Target. (I should note that many informed BF shoppers head to these stores as well, but only when it’s in their best interests.) I’m declaring this boycott mostly out of convenience because it really doesn’t affect me much. As a personal rule, I refuse to head to Wal-Mart or Best Buy on the morning of Black Friday for other reasons. Since I have mentioned Best Buy, it should be noted that they have been quoted as saying they will not bother with tracking down Black Friday ad sites to have their ads removed.

Objectively, this cease and desist order is simply a nuisance and not much else. In 2006, the Wal-Mart ad was leaked 15 days before Black Friday and now we’ll have to wait 12 extra days or so to see it. This simply means less organized planning time for those expecting to head to Wal-Mart on Black Friday.

GottaDeal.com has leaked another exclusive Black Friday ad — this time for Harbor Freight.

Here are just four of the 102 items in the Harbor Freight ad:

• $149.00 solid oak 60″ workbench
• $69.00 3000 lb. portable winch
• $29.95 microbrewery system
• $9.87 twin chrome air horns

For the complete list, head over to GottaDeal.com’s forum and view Harbor Freight’s Black Friday list or download the ad scan!