Brad

Hey everyone, just wanted to give an update on the prize packs and show you a pic of some of the things you might get if you win a prize pack this year. In this photo you'll see the baseball cap, winter beanie, pens, post-it notepads, magnets, stickers, coasters, beverage opener key chains and of course the huge stack of Amazon gift cards. I'm still reading your suggestions for additional items and so we'll see how much more I can order before it's time to ship the prize packs in a few weeks. http://i.gottadeal.com/main/images/merch/prizepack.jpg

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

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

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

Nothing official, but that would be my guess.

As I've done the past few years, I've looked at the data from the past 4 years including when the ad was leaked for some popular stores and what date Black Friday fell on each year. Based on these numbers and this year's Black Friday date (November 25th), here is the "average" day you can expect these ads this year: November 6: Sears, Sam's Club November 7: Kohl's, JCPenney, Meijer November 8: Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Toys R Us, Kmart November 9: Office Depot, Gander Mountain, Walgreens November 10: Staples November 11: CVS Pharmacy, Bass Pro Shops November 12: Dick's Sporting Goods November 13: Menard's November 14: Lowe's, Old Navy November 16: Home Depot November 25: Black Friday 2016 Harbor Freight, which came out on the 12th, would have been predicted for October 13th. You can go back through the last 10 years to see the leaked dates for many stores here: http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/Dates Of course you may remember that the last few years we had a crazy 36-hour periods that saw ads from Walmart, Best Buy, Target, Kohl's and many others all released right after each other. I expect something similar this year around November 7-9 (and the data above backs it up), so be prepared...

We just moved to new servers for Black Friday, so again, if anyone has issues, please post in this thread so our server techs can take a look at it. Please copy and paste any errors that might come up. Thanks

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

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=94746&p=RssLanding&cat=news&id=2211613

Google delayed the new version of Android Wear until next year sometime (and I wouldn't be surprised if they end up killing it eventually). But that means there won't be many new models coming out soon but there should still be some nice BF deals on models like the Moto 360 gen 2.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/holidaytoylist "All items on Amazon’s Holiday Toy List will be featured in a daily deal this holiday season, with deals offered on products from top brands such as Disney, PowerWheels, Ravensburger Puzzles, Monster High and Green Toys. Starting today, customers can enjoy up to 40% off select Melissa & Doug Toys, with additional deals on Hasbro Games, Play-Doh, Nerf and FurReal Friends to follow."

Scans: http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/BlackFridayScans/HarborFreight Listing: http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/BlackFridaySales/HarborFreight PDF: http://i.gottadeal.com/blackfriday/scans/pdf/GottaDeal-HarborFreight-BF2016.pdf

Here are some codes that will be valid: 20% off with code SHARE20. 11/18-11/20 15% off with code SAVING15. 11/21-11/25 20% off with code NOV20. 11/26-11/30

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!