The biggest mistake I made in the Black Friday sales last year
Updated
I screwed up last Black Friday. Not in covering the Black Friday sales on our Shopping site (have you read our early deals list? You should), but in physically shopping the sales. Each year, the sales event gets bigger and longer and more in your face than the year before, which is why it’s perfectly normal to completely switch off and check out.
Shopping mistakes, I’ve made a few. iStock
My mistakes were amateur.
- I started looking for deals on Black Friday. A no-no if you don’t want to spend unnecessarily. Silly shopping decisions are made in a rush.
- I didn’t have a list, so I clicked around my go-to sites, hoping to find anything with a big enough discount.
- I gave up (my lack of preparation to blame) and ended up buying an outfit at full price, beyond my budget, from a brand not participating in the sales. Not my finest decision, although the matching set was cute.
This year I plan to course correct and get back to saving, as I spend.
What Australian consumers spent in 2025
Over a two-week period, Aussies spent $23.8 billion* in the Black Friday sales last year. This figure was up 4.6% year-on-year.
*data from CommBankIQ
If you’re stuck on where to start, do this:
Zero in on what you really need, and ignore the rest
After years of covering the sales, the best deals are typically across furniture, tech, baby products and, surprisingly, sneakers. Clothes and accessories are heavily reduced, but the deals aren’t too different to mid-year, end-of-season, or Click Frenzy sales, so if it’s not something you desperately need, you can skip the fashion.
Create lists!
There are plenty of shopping apps to help you keep track of the items you want to buy. My favourite is Sortd, where you can categorise your purchases however you like and receive alerts when prices drop. I have one titled ‘do not buy unless on sale’, but if you prefer less threatening categories, you can go with identifiers like shoes, bags, activewear, etc.
Newsletters are also a savvy way to stay across the brands you want to hear from. Unsubscribe from the brand newsletters you’re no longer interested in and make sure you’re getting the ones you are. If you’re after a concise round up of the best deals from different retailers and brands in the one place, sign up to receive our new Shopping newsletter. We promise to only bring you the deals worth your time.
Get sorted now, as the deals start to heat up, to get the jump on a good deal and avoid the disappointment of missing out.
If you want to stay across the best deals and what’s worth the spend, bookmark our team’s Black Friday content, too.
Pre-load your carts
Find your logins and make sure your carts and favourite lists are ready to go when the deals drop.
Save your carts before the sale begins. Supplied
While you’re there, organise your bookmarks so you can click through to the deals you want faster.
Know your limit
The biggest sale event of the year isn’t the time to plunge yourself into debt. If you can’t afford to buy it, a deal, no matter the discount, won’t make it worthwhile.
Once you’ve settled on your sale allowance be sure to keep track of the baseline retail price for the things you’re eyeing off. Sometimes a 50 per cent discount isn’t always what it seems.
And finally...
If it’s not on sale for Black Friday, it’s probably not going to go on sale, not even on Cyber Monday.
Cyber Monday is an opportunity for brands to continue the sales momentum. It’s not always a bigger and better deal. Typically, it’s the same deal, just jazzed up with a gift with purchase or free shipping to get you over the line.
If you’re lucky, you might score an added 10 per cent off at checkout, but you could also find that the deal is no longer as enticing as it was on Black Friday.
Don’t rely on Cyber Monday if you’ve been set on your purchase for a while – unless you’ve been given a guarantee that the deal you want will still stand on the last day of the sale.
