Brad

True, but back in 2012, the major ads weren't leaked first by the stores themselves. The last few years they have been.

DISCUSS BLACK FRIDAY THIS YEAR & WIN GIFT CARDS TO THE STORE OF YOUR CHOICE! We're giving several of you on the forum $100 gift cards for doing what you all love to do anyway - talk about Black Friday! Here's how it works: Through November 28th (at 11:59:59pm EST), every time you post in one of the Black Friday forums (such as this main Black Friday Discussion subforum, any of the store-specific subforums, Posted Black Friday Ads or Online Black Friday subforums) you'll earn one entry into the contest. We're not going to require your posts to be a certain length to qualify or anything like that - we just want a lot of great discussion. We know there are times when a one-word reply is fine. All posts in all threads in these forums will count, including other contest threads. Be aware that it's pretty obvious if someone is attempting to "game the system" by posting repeatedly to get more entries. If that happens, we will give you ONE warning via PM. If we see the behavior continuing, you will be disqualified from winning a gift card. I don't expect this to be an issue (it wasn't during the last few years), but I wanted to make it clear that myself and the mods will be watching for any abuse. Any member who is banned is obviously no longer eligible to win the contest either. This includes posting multiple times in a row in a single thread when one post would be enough, replying to many threads with nothing but "thanks!", etc... as I said, it'll be obvious if anyone does this, so don't do it. There is plenty to discuss without having to cheat your way to more entries. So create interesting threads, reply to other members' questions, give your opinions on everything that is being discussed. This is a discussion board - let's have some interesting discussion here! On Tuesday, November 29th I will randomly select 5 winners from all eligible entries and each of you will receive a $100 gift card to the retailer of your choice! And as a benefit to those who were here early this year, all the posts in the forums up until now will also count towards this contest. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me and I'll be happy to answer them.

So the last few years, big stores like Walmart, Best Buy, Target & Kohl's have all released their ads at the beginning of the 2nd week of November. This year, that would be around November 7-9. Because the election is on the 8th this year, it will be interesting to see if they avoid those days and release their ads either earlier or later so they aren't lost in the election craziness. Thoughts? Might we see those ads earlier this year?

http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/MoreSales/DollarTreeToyBook

http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/MoreSales/FarmFleetToyland

http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/MoreSales/FleetFarmToyland

Nah, I haven't heard from Dev since last year so I wouldn't get your hopes up. Maybe he'll surprise us though.

http://investor.staples.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=96244&p=RssLanding&cat=news&id=2207133

Hey everyone, So we're going to try something different for this year. Rather than give away and sell t-shirts, I'm going to make things a little easier on myself by giving away new GottaDEAL prize packs for our contests on the forum and Facebook this year. These prize packs will have as assortment of never-before-seen GD swag including items we've never had before such as baseball caps, winter beanies and more. In fact I'm still ordering stuff to include so once I have everything here next month I'll post some pics. In addition to the GD merch, I'm going to include a bunch of Amazon GCs in various denominations from $5 to $100 to randomly selected packs. Yes, that means we won't be doing t-shirts this year (I can hear the boos from here). I fully plan to bring back shirts next year but I wanted to try this approach this year and see if it frees up some of my time to work on posting ads and deals. Dealing with t-shirt orders takes a lot of time and the only other option would be to sell them on a site like Teespring which would charge almost double what I normally do. So since I'm still in the process of finding new items to add to the packs, please reply to this thread with ideas for what kinds of items you'd like to see included. I'm specifically looking for items that could be useful on Black Friday, so give me some ideas

A little behind on working on the t-shirt design for this year, so I'm trying to get some ideas from you guys. Let me know any ideas for the shirts (color, design, etc...). Just keep in mind that we want these shirts to appeal to the most number of people. I thought about maybe doing an election themed shirt, but considering BF is a few weeks after the election, the timing might not be the best. So let's hear those ideas!

bumping this. i'll begin contacting everyone soon

75 days to go!

It's that time where we start looking for help for various Black Friday-related tasks on the site. Below you'll find some descriptions of things that we will need help with. If you want to help out, please PM me and let me know which of the items below you'd be interested in helping with along with any related experience/skills you may have. If you've helped in the past, let me know as well (although I'll be contacting most of you directly). We have 3 tasks that we need help with: Ad Posting: We need as many people as possible with excellent availability (primarily during the first 3 weeks of November including early mornings and nights) and who have above-average typing skills. You'll be taking the scans of the ads and typing up each item in the ad, selecting the appropriate category, entering price/rebate info, etc... This one requires a little more work but you'll get to see some ads before anyone else if you can do these things. We'll give you the exact format to use so you won't be totally lost. Ad Linking: We need people to help link the thousands of Black Friday ad items to the product pages on the store web sites. This involves looking at the BF ad and searching for the same item on that store's web site and pasting that link in a special form. You basically just need to know how to search a store's site using either the item number (if the ad shows it) or the product's name and then copy and paste. Content Writers: We're looking for those of you who enjoy writing about Black Friday to write articles, guides, interviews, etc... Basically you can come up with your own ideas for pieces, pitch them to me and assuming we don't have something similar, I'll give you the go ahead and you'll see it posted on the site with your name (if you'd like) as the author. You can do as little or as much as you'd like. To make things easier so we don't have more than one person doing the same work, we have a private forum for us all to get together, so if you are chosen you'll get access to that forum where we'll assign tasks and post updates. You won't be alone or feel overwhelmed as we'll hopefully once again have a small army of volunteers this year. We don't expect you to do this work for free - you will be compensated for your time and efforts at the end of the year based on how much you helped out. We typically send gift cards, but if you'd rather have another type of payment, we can work something out. Those of you who helped with this the last few years would be very welcome to help again as you all have done a great job. So again, if you feel you could do one or more of these tasks, send me a PM. If you have any questions, you can PM me as well. Thanks

Here are the dates (according to our records) when various ads were posted during the past 10 years: http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/Dates And here are links to text lists of the items in the ads (at least the ones in our database) dating back to 2003: 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 And don't forget, you can also browse the older scanned ads going back to 2004 at http://www.blackfridayarchive.com

As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

As expected, Amazon says it was their best day ever: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2185161

Details on some of the better deals just released: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2184554

Press release: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160629006569/en/ What’s New on Prime Day Deals are Everywhere – Members can shop deals on all devices, across nearly all categories, in all Prime countries. Lots of TVs – The deal inventory of TVs in the U.S. will be nearly 2x than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. Toys All Day – Members in the U.S. will find toy deals nearly all day on Prime Day. Watch-A-Deal – Readily track and shop any deal while at home or on-the-go with the Amazon App. Learn more at amazon.com/watched. Sort by Category – Newly-enhanced deal shopping is designed to help customers swiftly sort deals by category. Alexa Specials – There will be benefits to being an owner of an Amazon Echo, Echo Dot or Amazon Tap on Prime Day. More Sellers – Twice as many small business sellers around the world are participating in Prime Day this year. More to Watch – Members will find unbelievable deals on some of today’s top rated TV series and popular blockbuster films to rent or purchase and instantly stream on Amazon Video. Tips and Tricks – Find helpful advice on how to shop on Prime Day at amazon.com/primeday

For anyone having problems, get the IP address of the connection that is having problems and PM me with it. You can get your IP here: http://whatismyipaddress.com I actually found myself banned a couple weeks ago because my IP was added to the blacklist.

...and about 6 months from the major ads leaking

It's back! Please join our NCAA Bracket Challenge for 2016. We are using ESPN's bracket system to play this year. To join click here: http://games.espn.go.com/tournament-challenge-bracket/2016/en/group?groupID=703583 The group password is blackfriday ESPN also has an app you can use to sign up and follow your picks. Find us within the app by group name GottaDeal.com. *** IMPORTANT *** Your bracket entry name must be the same as your GottaDeal forum username. Your ESPN username can be anything, but please rename your ENTRY to be the same as your forum username. This contest is only available to members with forum accounts. If you win and your entry is not a valid forum username, you won't win a prize, so sign up for a forum account first if you don't already have one. You have until Thursday morning to enter your picks - I'd recommend doing them as soon as possible. The winner will receive a 2016 Black Friday t-shirt and other brand new GD merch! Good luck!