Black Friday (and lately Thanksgiving Day) are the shopping events that dominate November, but don’t discount the rest of the month when you’re looking for deals on certain items. From cookware to sneakers priced 50 to 60 percent off, the month of November can yield great deals … and you don’t have to worry about battling crowds.
At the top of the shopping list is candy. November is the best time to stock up on heavily discounted candy left over from All Hallow's Eve as stores are looking to unload those Halloween branded treats, according to Brett Billick, vice president for Deals2Buy, a consumer deal site.
Another biggie is cookware. “You’ll see sales on cookware throughout the fall season, but November has the best deals, and just in time for Turkey Day,” Billick says. The deals on cookware can range from 25 to 60 percent off, according to experts.
Mark Di Vincenzo, guru of the best times to buy this, do that and go there, says sneakers are a lesser-known hot item this month. "A lot of people don't know there are two good months out of the year to buy sneakers or tennis shoes," Di Vincenzo says. "One is November and it has to do with big-box retailers trying to make room in their shoe departments for boots." Expect to see discounts, depending on the brand, of up to 50 percent.
You can also find a lot of sales on restaurant gift cards in November, says Di Vincenzo. Restaurants attract first-time visitors with these incentives and hope they will return during the holiday season — a time when many individuals may splurge and go out to dinner. Find gift card deals at websites such as Restaurant.com and Groupon, he says.
November is a good month to look for deals on toys priced about 25 percent off. That wasn’t always the case. “It used to be that the popular toys were a Black Friday thing,” Di Vincenzo says. “Now, especially at big-box retailers, they are putting the popular toys on sale in early November and sometimes even the weekend before Halloween. They want you to come back and do the bulk of your Christmas shopping in their stores, so they want to get you into the stores well before Black Friday.”
Di Vincenzo cautions that many of the popular toys will not be on sale after Black Friday.
And finally, to fully get into the spirit of the holiday season, consider buying your Christmas tree in November. “Some people can’t start decorating that early, but in November, you have your pick of the freshest trees and trees with the straightest trunks and they aren’t going to go down in price,” Di Vincenzo says. When you buy in late November, regardless of how much you pay, you get a better value since you will have it for an entire month.
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