Here is a fact that should make you pause before clicking “Buy now”. When the consumer group Which? tracked the daily prices of 201 Black Friday deals from big UK retailers across a whole year, only one of them was at its lowest price on Black Friday alone. In that study of the 2020 sales, 99.5% of the products were the same price or cheaper at some other point in the year.
So the question is not “is this a deal?” but “is this price actually lower than usual?” You can answer that in about three minutes with a price-history check. This guide shows you how, explains the tricks that make a normal price look like a bargain, and gives you a simple rule for when to buy and when to wait.
Why the “was” price is the bit to distrust
Every discount is a comparison: a higher reference price next to a lower one. The lower price is real. The higher one is where the games happen.
There are rules about this, and they differ by country.
- United States: the Federal Trade Commission’s Guides Against Deceptive Pricing (16 CFR 233.1) say a “former price” should be one the item was “offered to the public on a regular basis for a reasonably substantial period of time”. A made-up price nobody was ever charged does not count.
- United Kingdom: Which? notes that under the Chartered Trading Standards Institute’s pricing guidance, a reference price can be the shop’s own earlier price, the manufacturer’s recommended price (RRP), or a rival’s price, and it is not genuine if other prices were charged in between.
Those are guidelines that retailers are expected to follow, but they leave room. A shop can lift a price for a few weeks in autumn, then “cut” it back in November. An RRP can be a figure almost nobody pays. Rules can also change, so check the official pages above if you need the current wording.
The three-minute price check
Do this for anything over about £50 or $50. It works on a phone.
- Copy the exact model number. Not “Samsung 55-inch TV” but the full code from the product page, something like a string of letters and numbers. Retailers sometimes sell a slightly different model, made just for the sales, which makes comparisons hard.
- Look up its price history. For Amazon, free trackers such as CamelCamelCamel or Keepa show a chart of the price over months. In the UK, PriceSpy and PriceRunner track prices across many shops. Paste the model number into the search box.
- Read the chart, not the badge. Find the lowest price in the last six months. If today’s “deal” is the same as a price you could have paid in July, it is a normal price wearing a costume.
- Search the model number on two other big retailers. If they all have it at the same price, that price is the market price, not a special offer.
- Decide. Use the rule in the box below.
Quick decision rule: buy if today’s price is at or below the lowest price of the last six months and you were going to buy this item anyway. Otherwise, wait. Which? found most products were the same price or cheaper in the six months after Black Friday too.
A worked example: the “£200 off” vacuum
Say a cordless vacuum is advertised at £249, was £449, save £200. Here is how the check might go.
| What you find | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| The £449 is the RRP; the shop’s own price history shows £299 since summer | The real saving is £50, not £200 |
| It dropped to £249 for a week in August | £249 is a repeat price, not a one-off |
| Two other retailers list it at £259 and £249 | £249 is roughly the going rate in the sales |
Verdict: a fair price if you need a vacuum now, but no reason to rush. The “£200 off” headline was doing all the selling.
The numbers in this example are made up to show the method. Do the check yourself on the real item, because prices move daily.
Five tricks that make an ordinary price look special
- The inflated “was” price. Covered above. The comparison price was only charged briefly, or it is an RRP almost no one paid.
- The sales-only model. A TV or laptop with a slightly different model number, often with cheaper parts, appears only in November. Because nobody else sells it, you cannot compare it.
- The countdown clock. “Deal ends in 02:14:37!” pushes you to skip the price check. Many of these deals return within weeks.
- “Up to 70% off”. That usually means one or two items reach 70% and most of the range is cut far less.
- The bundle. A console “with a free game” can cost more than buying both separately at another shop. Price the parts.
Is the website itself real?
A genuine deal on a fake website is no deal at all. Scam shops spring up every November with prices that look too good to be true, because they are. Before you type card details into a site you have never used, run through our checks on telling if a website is safe, and our wider guide to shopping online safely.
The days after Black Friday bring a wave of fake “missed delivery” messages, timed to catch people expecting parcels. Our guide to the package delivery text scam covers what they look like. If you have teenagers doing their own shopping, this explainer on helping your teen spot fake delivery texts is worth ten minutes together at the kitchen table.
Checklist: before you press “Buy”
- I was planning to buy this before I saw the deal.
- I have the exact model number.
- Today’s price is at or below the lowest price of the last six months.
- At least one other big retailer is not cheaper.
- I know the returns policy and how long I have.
- I am paying by credit card or a method with buyer protection, on a site I trust.
If you tick all six, buy it and enjoy it. If you cannot tick the first one, close the tab. A discount on something you did not need is still money spent.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are any Black Friday deals genuine?
Yes. Some items do hit their lowest price of the year, and a fair price on something you need is still worth having. The point is that the badge alone does not tell you. A price-history chart does. In Which?’s study, around 4 in 10 products were cheaper than the Black Friday price at some other time of year, so checking pays off.
Is it better to buy before or after Black Friday?
There is no single answer, but Which? found most deals were the same price or cheaper in the six months before and the six months after. If the price history shows regular dips, waiting is low risk. For gifts with a fixed deadline, buy when the price matches its recent low.
What does RRP mean, and should I trust it?
RRP is the manufacturer’s recommended retail price. Shops are allowed to compare against it in the UK, but many products sell well below it most of the year. Treat “% off RRP” as a starting point and compare against what the item actually sold for over recent months.
Do price trackers work on every shop?
No. Amazon trackers only cover Amazon, and comparison sites cover the retailers that share data with them. If you cannot find a history, search the model number across three big retailers and compare. If all three match, you are looking at the normal price.
Last updated: November 15, 2026