Brad

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.

If you don't score one tomorrow (I'm guessing you probably will as they have a ton of them to sell), let me know as I have one here still in box from November that I'm not going to use

Just announced this morning. Details here: http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=pin15_us_gw_d_airstream_pre-event_GoldBox?_encoding=UTF8&node=11448061011 "Prime Day is a one-day shopping event on July 15, 2015, with more deals than Black Friday. Prime members can shop exclusive deals from electronics, toys, video games, movies, clothing, patio, lawn and garden, sports and outdoor items and more." They might have more deals than they did on Black Friday (and to be honest, most of their deals took place in the days before Black Friday, so it's not a huge number they have to beat), but we'll see if the quality of those deals is Black Friday-level. Also, Target is having their Black Friday in July sale starting on Wednesday of this week.

The countdown continues...

Today marks 8 months until Thanksgiving. We're 1/3 of the way there.

The deadline is tomorrow morning so sign up if you haven't!

less than 3 days to sign up

It's back! Please join our NCAA Bracket Challenge for 2015. We are using ESPN's bracket system to play this year. To join click here: http://games.espn.go.com/tournament-challenge-bracket/2015/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 a 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 $50 Amazon gift card Good luck!

As we did last year after several of you asked for it, we're going to leave this main BF forum open all year in case there is any Black Friday / Cyber Monday news during the year (or if you just feel like talking about Black Friday in March for some reason). Use it, don't use it, whatever

http://www.gottadeal.com/images/target.gif Welcome to the Wonderful World of Target Perimeter Perusing! As many of you know, Target B&M stores are known for their terrific clearance deals. This thread is for GottaDeal.com forum members to share their latest clearance finds. Also, please keep non-clearance discussion to a minimum - there are other threads for discussing weekly sale ads and store policy. This first post will contain some background information on the wonderful world of Target clearance, otherwise known around here as Perimeter Perusing! You may have noticed that although the sticker price (the red-orange clearance sticker) show one price, many times the items will actually scan for a lesser amount. You can use this to your advantage because many shoppers without the benefit of being GottaDeal members do not realize this and pass the item by, thinking the sticker price is the actual price. Also, many times an item is not marked clearance in any way but still may be on clearance, so if you have an item that you would consider buying if it was on clearance, we suggest you take it to the nearest scanner and check the price that comes up. This is especially true of items which other members have reported being on clearance at their local store. The standard clearance pattern at Target usually begins by items being marked down 15% or 30% at the beginning. This price can last somewhere between two weeks to a month, depending on how well the item sells at this price and what department the item is from. Then the item typically drops to 50%, again for anywhere from two weeks to a month in most cases. Generally, the lowest an item will be marked down is 75% off, with a few exceptions. Items considered 'holiday' or 'seasonal' items have been known to go as low as 90%, and you will find a few occasional display items or things found in the stockroom after inventory discounted in the 80%-90% range. In many cases, the lowest price an item will go will usually end in $x.x4 or $x.x8, but this is not always the case for 100% of items, so take that into consideration. A typical markdown schedule for the seasonal or holiday clearance is as follows: Traditional Post-Holiday Target Clearance Schedule 50% off - marked down on the day after the holiday, usually lasts for three days 75% off - marked down on the fourth day after the holiday, usually lasts for three days 90% off - marked down on the seventh day after the holiday, usually lasts for 1-3 days Other than Christmas, this is usually the schedule used for post-holiday clearance, including Valentine's Day, Easter, Summerville, and Halloween, for at least the last few years. The holiday mark-down does seem to fluctuate from store to store on occasion, but to help demonstrate how the holiday clearance has gone in 2008 and 2009, here is the Decatur, AL clearance dates for Valentine's Day and Halloween, courtesy of Timswife81404: Valentine's 08 Feb. 15th, 2008 = 50% Feb. 18th, 2008 = 75% Feb. 20th, 2008 = 90% Valentine’s 09 Feb. 15th, 2009 = 50% Feb. 17th, 2009 = 75% (red dot dollar spot too) Feb. 21st, 2009 = 90% Halloween 08 Nov. 1st, 2008 = 50% Nov. 4th, 2008 = 75% Nov. 8th, 2008 = 90% Halloween 09 Nov. 1st, 2009 = 50% Nov. 3rd, 2009 = 75% Nov. 7th, 2009 = 90% Target initiated a controversial new return policy in November 2002 that says any seasonal clearance items returned will be refunded at the current clearance price, even with a receipt showing a higher purchase price. They updated the policy in April 2003 to specify these items as Christmas trees and decorations and Halloween costumes and decorations. Other seasonal merchandise should still be refunded at the price stated on the reciept. Christmas clearance is an animal all to itself. The dates appear to be as follows: 50% off - always December 26,lasts four to five days 75% off - within a day or two on either side of New Year's Eve/Day (12/31-01/01) 90% off - within a day or two of Epiphany (01/06) The Decatur, AL markdown schedule for Christmas in 2007, 2008 and 2009 was as follows: Christmas 07 Dec. 26th, 2007 = 50% Dec. 31st, 2007 = 75% Jan. 4th, 2007 = 90% Christmas 08 Dec. 26th, 2008 = 50% Dec. 30th, 2008 = 75% Jan. 6th, 2009 = 90% Jan. 2nd, 2009 = 75% Dollar Spot Christmas (black dot) Christmas 09 Dec. 26th, 2009 = 50% Dec. 31st, 2009 = 75% (black dollar spot too) Jan. 5th, 2010 = 90% Twice a year, Target has a major clearance on toys. Once in January and again in the summer. Here are the dates for the January toy clearance in Decatur, AL: Toys 08 Jan. 10th, 2008 = 75% Toys 09 Jan. 15th, 2009 = 75% on MOST toys some still 30-50% Jan. 29th, 2009 = 75% on remaining toys Toys 10 Jan. 15th, 2010 = 75% (Friday) Other departments have an annual major clearance. Dates will be posted here as they become known. Baby 09 Jan. 19th, 2009 = 75% on MOST already clearanced Jan. 26th, 2009 = 75% on remaining clearance Target is one of the few stores where many (although not all) of the cashiers have the ability to bargain when an item doesn't scan with a price. There are times when an item will scan as 'clearance + tax' - be happy in these situations instead of groaning. Sometimes the cashier can do a price override to find the most recent lowest price, but sometimes if you say "I'll take it for (whatever 75% off the marked retail price would be)" they'll just key that in. It's always worth a shot. The same thing applies for an item that scans 'NOF' (Not On File). This means the item is so old that it is completely out of the computer inventory system. Again, a good suggestion is to try offering the 75% off the retail price, but if necessary a price can usually be looked up at the Guest Services Desk. However, if an item has gone 'salvage,' this may backfire on you. In this instance Target marks the item back up to full retail value before pulling it from the shelves and donating it to a charity such as Goodwill or the Salvation Army for a tax write off. This is one of the reasons how Target can claim to donate so much to charity. The markdown teams in each many stores have been known to keep to a standardized schedule, but there are stores that have different ones, so your experience many vary. For those who do follow the standard schedule, the departmental markdown days are: Traditional Department Mark Down Schedule Monday - Electronics, Kids' Clothing, Stationery, Cards, Gift wrap Tuesday - Domestics, Women's Clothing, Pets, Market Pantry Wednesday - Men's Clothing, Toys, Health and Beauty, Lawn & Garden Thursday - Housewares, Lingerie, Shoes, Sporting Goods, Movies, Music, Books, Decor, Luggage Friday - Automotive, Cosmetics, Hardware, Jewelry Note that while this schedule says nothing about weekend markdowns, many Perimeter Perusers on the forum have seen items change in price between a Saturday morning shopping trip and one done on a Sunday afternoon. But nobody has found any rhyme or reason to what gets marked down on those days though - another part of the fun. Target does not have a layaway plan, but die-hard Perimeter Perusers have tried various methods of getting around this. Most are constantly debated on the forum as far as being 'ethical' or not, so we'll leave it for you to decide for yourself. Just don't be surprised to find some differing opinions if you bring it up in this thread. When an item goes 50% off and there are several left, some posters have said they find a hiding place to put the item. They then go back to see if the item is still there several weeks later, and if so, scan it to see if it has dropped in price. Some common hiding places shared are in the middle of a round clothes rack, where all of the clothes hide the item, about a third of the way off the floor of a stack of pillows or behind similar items, perhaps with newer packaging, on the proper shelf. Sometimes, when items are getting scarce at 50% off, posters will buy them at that price and hold on to the receipt. If they find the item later at 75% or 90% off, they will buy the item again, remove any clearance stickers that show the lower price and return the item at another time with the older, higher priced receipt, as long as it is within the 90-day return period. While not technically a clearance topic, in this thread, you may see reference to MM Juice or MM packs. These refer to 10 packs of Minute Maid juice boxes that can generally be bought for $.69. They are found in the juice aisle mixed in with the 15 packs. This usually includes only the Grape, Apple & Fruit Punch flavors -- never Orange Juice. They look exactly like the 15 packs which are generally stocked on the shelf, but instead of having 3 rows of 5 boxes, there are only 2 rows. They are often mixed in with the others, and even hidden in the back behind the 15 packs. You may go months or longer before you find your first set, but they really do exist. They are not an urban legend. And most of us can attest that you'll do a little dance in the aisle when you find them the first time. Helpful Target Clearance-Related Links Target Store Locator Target Coupon Generator Target Clearance Locator

When they told us they were doing this, they said they've never done it before. I don't remember them doing it. They've got a lot of cheap stuff in their online specials, clearance and rollback sections which this is great for.

Should start shortly after midnight PST tonight. http://www.walmart.com

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=60706&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1996036

iPad was shipped today. I also picked up a cheap iPad Air 2 over the weekend, possibly for a future contest.

Well then you'd better get started. I'm getting hungry sitting in front of the computer posting Cyber Monday deals all day

The winner has been selected... drumroll please.... pogiporkchop has been selected as the winner of the iPad mini with Retina Display! The winning post, randomly selected from all entries was this post in the "Do you Buy for Yourself on Black Friday?" thread. Congrats to pogiporkchop and thanks to everyone who posted in the BF forums this year. We'll do something similar next year.

Cheesecake Factory - Buy $25 GC, get 2 slices of cheesecake today only: https://shop.thecheesecakefactory.com/

Deadline for entries is midnight PST tonight. Winner to be announced tomorrow.

Seems like it doesn't matter if they open 6pm Thursday, 8pm Thursday, midnight or early Friday. They'll get roughly the same amount of sales for the 2 days combined either way. I don't see them ever going back to opening Friday morning, but I wouldn't be surprised if the open times we saw this year are as early as they go. In other words I'd be very surprised if Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc... open at 3-4pm next year. No surprise online sales we up big again this year. That's a trend that will continue for a while (and is a big reason why this site exists).

Just a reminder that tomorrow is the last day to earn entries for this contest. Winner to be announced on Monday.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/black-friday-sales-fall-sales-start-earlier-27254181 Black Friday down 7% Thanksgiving up 24% Overall sales for the two days were down 0.5% Online up 9% on Black Friday

I'm also going to be deleting the PDFs from our server, but if you need to check out this year's ads (or any ads going back to 2007), you can do it on the Black Friday Archive: http://www.blackfridayarchive.com

Cyber Week sale has started: http://www.gottadeal.com/Deal/113530

Sure, why not. There wasn't much discussion in it last year but we can try it again.

So after they overnighted a new batch of shirts that arrived on Wednesday, I received my original order today. Guess UPS found it eventually. So I'll have some randomly sized hoodies to give away next year with the "classic" 2014 design