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. This first post will also be used for important links, info, tips, etc... as we get closer to Black Friday.

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. This first post will also be used for important links, info, tips, etc... as we get closer to Black Friday.

3 months to go :)

As I've shown in this thread: http://forums.gottadeal.com/showthread.php?t=149196 unless Ace is early again this year, it could still be nearly 2 months before the first/next ad, so be patient...

So as you can all clearly see, aside from a super-early Ace Hardware ad, you shouldn't really expect to see ads until mid-October. Of course that can always change this year, but going by the past 4 years, the trend is definitely there.

Dates when 2008 Black Friday ads were posted on GottaDeal.com: 8/6 - Ace Hardware 10/17 - Polo Ralph Lauren 10/18 - Harbor Frieght 10/24 - Half Price Books 10/26 - Sears 10/31 - Walgreens, Craft Warehouse 11/2 - Bath & Body Works 11/3 - Military BX (AAFES) 11/5 - Factory Card & Party Outlet 11/6 - Lowes 11/7 - Kmart Thanksgiving 11/10 - Navy Exchange, Gander Mountain, Dell Home Office, Tommy Hilfiger, Rite Aid 11/11 - CVS Pharmacy 11/12 - Sports Authority, JCPenney, Radio Shack 11/13 - Best Buy 11/14 - Dick's Sporting Goods, Circuit City, OfficeMax, Costco 11/15 - Kohl's, Macy's, Kmart, Target 11/17 - Burlington Coat Factory, Meijer, Home Depot 11/18 - Bass Pro Shops 11/19 - IKEA, Blockbuster Video, Staples, J&R 11/20 - GameStop, Cabela's, Overstock.com, Old Navy, Toys R Us 11/22 - Walmart 11/24 - Dell Business And for those of you historians, here are the 2005-2007 dates: Thanks to Marcster for compiling those older lists. And here are links to text files taken from our database of BF items the past few years for your reference: 2003 - http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/2003.txt 2004 - http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/2004.txt 2005 - http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/2005.txt 2006 - http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/2006.txt 2007 - http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/2007.txt 2008 - http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/2008.txt

As of Wednesday, we are exactly 100 days away from Black Friday 2009 And to mark the occasion, as you can see we've opened up the full suite of Black Friday sub-forums, including the store-specific boards (with one less this year because of Circuit City's demise). The "Holiday Discussion" board will open in another month or two once things get a little busier. The actual Black Friday site is pretty much ready for the first ad(s) to be posted as well, so things are getting close. We've already had nearly 1,000 posts in the BF forums, which is crazy given how long we still have to go until BF

Story: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124966204168614785.html?mod=dist_smartbrief A couple years away, but still interesting. I wonder if they'll start offering in-store pickup / site-to-store shipping.

The contest is now closed. The 5 winners randomly selected from all entries are: JenT1292 shopping4my3son guilliam littlezar connieh You will be PMed shortly to get your mailing address. Thanks to everyone who participated and look for a new giveaway soon :)

contest ends tomorrow night - get your entry in if you haven't already!

I will say that we've never been contacted by as many retailers so far in advance for any other BF as we are this year. Just yesterday Michael's (arts & crafts store) contacted me to see how they can be a part of the site this year. So stores are definitely counting on BF to help sales this year. While the bigger stores like Walmart might not be as cooperative, we're expecting lots of help from the small-to-mid level stores (and hopefully they'll send us a bunch of stuff to give away to you guys too!)

Like others have said, there is really no reason to wait. There won't be a price drop before the holidays. The best you can hope for on BF would be a free game or accessory with purchase, but you can even get that kind of deal now at places like Walmart: http://www.walmart.com/product_id=10726532

There could be, but it will be a stripped down 7" version with Linux I'd guess. The same kind you can get now for $149 or so.

see here to win some bags: http://forums.gottadeal.com/showthread.php?t=147847

Our first contest of the year here in the Black Friday forum! I'm going to give away five (5) 4-packs of our new GD reusable grocery bags. To enter, all you have to do is reply to this thread with your answers to these 3 questions: 1. In your opinion, what store had the best Black Friday ad last year (2008) and why? 2. What would be your #1 piece of advice to someone totally new to Black Friday? 3. Besides offering great deals, what else can a store do to get you to shop there on BF? I'll keep the contest open until Sunday, August 9th at 10pm ET. At that point I'll randomly select 5 winners from all entries and each of those winners will receive a 4-pack of bags. And if you want to purchase bags or want to see pics of what they look like, see here. http://www.gottadeal.com/images/bag.gifhttp://www.gottadeal.com/images/bag.gifhttp://www.gottadeal.com/images/bag.gifhttp://www.gottadeal.com/images/bag.gif

Please try to use the item listing format detailed in the opening posts of the thread so we can have all these great finds added to the summary list. Thanks :)

2005 and 2006 were kind of "free for all" years on the BF forums. We didn't have as many mods and just let things go so the BF forums were a mess with the same things being posted over and over and over again. 2007 through this year we've had the individual store sub-forums to keep things more organized, the FAQs and "official" threads for things like laptops, HDTVs, etc... as well as many more mods to delete / close duplicate threads, etc... So the number of threads and posts goes down because of the organization. Traffic has gone up every year, so it's not that people aren't on the forum - we're just keeping them from posting the same things over and over again :)

facebook.com/gottadeal works for me

FYI, the shipping boxes for these have arrived and I'll start sending out orders in the next day or two :) I'll also start some contests to give them away shortly, on here and through our Twitter account.

This contest is now over. The 6 randomly selected winners are: vsa3janes sadmom5 DramaQueenLucy cashandra elite2058 jbdinos Congrats, and the next contest has already started: http://forums.gottadeal.com/showthread.php?t=146833

anyone have the new free shipping code?

GottaDeal.com Summer Gift Card Giveaway #2! POST DEALS & WIN GREAT PRIZES! Introducing the GottaDeal.com Summer Gift Card Giveaway #2! We're giving away hundreds of dollars in gift cards and all you have to do to be eligible to win is to post deals here on the forum - it's that easy! Over the next couple of months, we are going to award giveaway entries to forum members who post qualifying* deals in the Online Hot Deals forum. You can earn a maximum of 5 entries per day - one for each qualifying* deal you post. See below for details about what makes a qualifying deal. At the end of the contest period, we will randomly select six (6) winners from all the entries earned during the duration of the contest period. Each winner will receive a $50 gift card to the partner retailer of your choice! These are the same retailers that earn you entries when you post deals from them. OFFICIAL RULES Promotion period begins on July 20, 2009 at 12:00am Eastern Time and ends on October 4, 2009 at 11:59pm Eastern Time. All registered GottaDeal.com forum members are eligible to participate in this promotion, including temporary and permanent moderators. Members found to have created multiple forum accounts for the purposes of accumulating additional entries will be disqualified. You will receive one drawing entry for each qualifying* deal thread posted in the Online Hot Deals forum during the contest period. List of partner stores may change during the contest. Deals will count if the store is on the list when the deal is posted.Only your first five qualifying* deal threads will earn you entries each day. Each daily period starts at 12:00am and ends at 11:59pm Eastern Time. Prize winners will be randomly selected no later than October 5, 2009 from all entries earned during the promotion period. Limit one prize per forum member. Once someone has been chosen as a winner, their remaining entries will be removed from the drawing.Winners will be contacted via private message and/or e-mail to claim their prize. If a prize is not claimed within 14 days, it will be forfeited. QUALIFYING DEALS In order for a deal thread to qualify for an entry for this promotion, it must satisfy ALL of the following criteria: 1. The thread's title must include the name of the retailer the deal is for. 2. The post must contain a link, even if it's just a link to the retailer's home page. 3. The deal must be from one of our partner retailers (see complete list below). 4. The deal must must be unique and not be a repost of a recently posted deal. We reserve the right to disqualify any deal for any reason. Besides these mandatory criteria, we also ask that you be as descriptive as possible in your thread title. Where possible, include an image in your post. If there is a specific method to get the deal, provide step-by-step instructions. If a coupon code is needed, be sure to include the code in your post. Please do not directly copy and paste deals from other sites - you may "borrow" the deal, but type the title and post in your own words. Directly copied posts may be disqualified. HELPFUL HINTS Please search before posting a deal. Re-posted deals will be deleted.Make sure your deal is a legit deal and not just "filler" to earn an entry.Check the list of partner retailers - some "big" stores are not eligible.List of qualifying retailers may change at any time - keep checking back.Please take the time to read this entire post - it will save you time.Combine deals if possible. Similar deals from same store may be merged.Avoid using ALL CAPS in your posts and include the $ when posting prices. *** CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE QUALIFYING PARTNER RETAILERS *** Also, as an additional incentive to post deals and to reward those of you who stick around all year (and not just for Black Friday season), as with the previous giveaway, each day you post the maximum 5 qualifying deals, you'll also earn a bonus entry into our big holiday giveaway which will start in October.

I think that might be an average cost, so when you factor in the better brands and models, it sounds about right.

We've posted deals for 32" LCD HDTVs for around $349 and 42" 1080p LCD HDTVs for $599, so $50 and $100 drops from those prices on BF seem likely. I'd even go a little cheaper with my prediction, depending on the brand. As always though, if you are willing to pay $100-200 more, you can get a much, much better model that you'll likely be much happier with over time.

The problem is most people are lazy and don't want to start their holiday shopping that early. The actual Black Friday is good because it's the day after Thanksgiving - people know Christmas is right around the corner and they have a month or less. Panic slowly starts to set in and it gets people to the store. People are in the holiday spirit, etc... that won't happen on Columbus day. It's too early for most shoppers. I think BF as we know it will continue. There might be extra "big" sales on other days, but a store that has a sale on Columbus day will still have a big BF ad because all the others stores will and they won't want to lose sales on that busy shopping day. Regardless, we'll be here to cover everything. If this Columbus day becomes big enough and we can get the ads, we'll be ready to post them. There will be a lot of sales during the entire 4th quarter this year, offline and online. And since we're a deal site open all year, we're more than prepared to cover everything, whether it's on the BF site or on the main GD site.