14 percent of Black Friday “deals” are still full-price

With exactly one week until Black Friday, shoppers have to keep their eyes open for the real deals.

According to a WalletHub holiday shopping study, 14 percent of Black Friday consumer goods are not discounted despite being advertised as a Black Friday sale item.

“Do not buy into the phrase from any particular retailer- we are selling it for the lowest price!” Raj Agnihotri, director of the Iowa State Sales Consortium and associate professor of marketing at Iowa State University told WalletHub. “Make sure you check out other retailers. They may have better deals for the same product.”

Like Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer, Black Friday is traditionally the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season. About 116 million shoppers are planning to shop on Black Friday, 71 percent of the estimated 164 million who plan to shop Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, according to a National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics survey.

Vying for those customers who are collectively expected to spend $717.5 billion means retailers are slashing and matching prices to get a piece of the pie. But with all the options and selections comes the deceit that the advertised price isn’t an actual discount at all.

WalletHub compared pre- and actual Black Friday prices for a broad selection of items. They found 4.2 percent of items will have Black Friday prices similar to what they currently sell for and 10.1 percent will be more expensive on Black Friday than they currently are on Amazon.com.

To add insult to injury, the product categories that will have the least discounts are the most wanted: consumer electronics, computers and phones. According to the study, computers and phones will have an average 25 percent discount on Black Friday and consumer electronics an average discount of 26 percent. The product categories with the deepest discounts are jewelry, at an average discount of 73 percent, followed by books, movies and music at a 48 percent discount and a 46 percent average discount for consumer packaged goods.

But shoppers are smarter than ever. According to WalletHub’s survey, 51 percent of consumers said they don’t think Black Friday offers the most unbeatable bargains of the year. And they may be right.

“Retailers have conditioned the consumer to believe everything’s on sale every day, which means the deals on Black Friday are not significantly different from any other time,” Steven Barr, consumer markets leader for PwC told the Denver Post.

Deals are now spread throughout the Black Friday weekend instead of a one-day Black Friday. Also, retailers have created their own Black Fridays throughout the year. For example, Amazon.com has Prime Day in July, which according to Forbes, 76 percent of the deals there were better than on Black Friday last year. Macy’s often has the One-Day Sale once every month that also provides deep discounts. Not to mention Christmas sales.

According to CNET, to know if what you’re getting is an actual good deal, the price history website Camelcamelcamel shows the highs and lows for about every product on Amazon.com. For price-tracking data for other stores, CNET recommends browser plug-in Honey, which works with Amazon, Best Buy, Target and Walmart and others. WalletHub also has their best and worst Black Friday deals found while doing their holiday shopping survey.