Some Black Friday and Holiday Prices are Already in Effect

This might sound like a Captain Obvious type of post, but a lot of retailers have already kicked off holiday sale pricing on a lot of their special holiday items.

I spent a couple of hours this weekend re-visiting nearby Home Depot, Lowes, and Sears locations to check on the progress of their holiday displays.

Black Friday is on 11/28/2014, which is about 18 days away. This means that many seasonal tool displays are up and fully stocked.

Black friday “doorbusters” won’t go on sale until Black Friday, although certain items tend to go on sale as early as Thanksgiving online, but there are plenty of “special buys” that are already available now.

A lot of the deals we recently posted about will be first advertised in Black Friday sales flyers, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t or shouldn’t buy them now. If the price should drop by a couple of bucks, you can usually take advantage of stores’ price matching policies.

Some of these holiday special buys will drop in price.

It’s easy to see which products will be hot sellers this year, and which ones will still be in stock in a couple of weeks. Sometimes it’s not very clear which deals will remain constant throughout the holiday season, and which will get better. And sometimes the deals will get better, but by the time that happens the item is already out of stock online and in stores.

Milwaukee’s M12 drill, impact driver, and free battery kit is the type of deal that I don’t expect to last very long in stores. It’s currently available online and in stores, but the two Home Depots I visited in past couple of days only had 5 kits in stock, combined.

Other products, like the Kobalt Direct Drive gearless ratchet I reviewed, will be in stock for quite a while. Some stores might sell out mid-season, but others might still have a couple left after the year ends.

The Kobalt gearless ratchet is an example of the type of product I fully expect to drop in price. Right now the set is priced at $30, but I think it will drop to $20 in coming weeks. Maybe it will drop to $18 during the final days or weeks of the holiday shopping season.

Anyway, the point is – if you see a Black Friday or holiday deal mentioned here or elsewhere, chances are that you don’t have to wait to take advantage of it. Wet/dry vacuums, and other doorbusters or limited-supply tools, are the only major exceptions to this.