The truth about Black Friday

There are bargains galore on Black Friday, if your idea of "galore" is "last year's models." In good times and bad, the widespread practice of retailers is to put a premium price tag on the newest merchandise and slash prices on last year's fashions and gizmo models that are about to be discontinued. Black Friday, so called because of the usually mistaken view that it is the day on which a store's accounts swing from the red to the black, is basically a clearance sale. You can see the new stuff. You can buy the new stuff. If you think there will be short supplies and fights for the last ones, you may want to buy the new stuff. But if you go to the store Friday expecting real deals, it will be the older merchandise that is priced to move. There will always be exceptions, and a smart store will do some very high profile exceptions, but this is the general lay of the land. How much of an opportunity Black Friday is, depends on your financial constraints, and on how fashion-conscious are the people for whom you're shopping. For example, are you buying last year's video game for a child whose classmates will recognize it as such and send him home telling you that you bought something old? But if you see no problem in buying last year's car when it's price is reduced to make way for this year's car, then there are flat screens and laptops with your name on them. If you're more concerned about crowds than cash, be advised that most big box retailers already put their deals online at 7 p.m. Wednesday, HST. The single biggest price war this season will be Amazon versus Wal-Mart. Want a simple way to see which high-end stores won't have any deals to speak of? The ones that don't want to encourage bargain-hunting are the ones that open at 8 a.m. when the big boxes are opening before dawn. Are you a procrastinator? The single most important difference this year, from your perspective, is that retail chains this year have been forced to be more frugal in ordering merchandise, so the risk is greater than usual that they will run out of something altogether before you rouse yourself to go get it.