Gemma Rasmussen: Consumer NZ's Head of Research covers the worst Black Friday deals

A three-month long investigation has revealed that many of the offers available this Black Friday are not the bargain they may seem to be. 

Consumer NZ conducted an investigation into Briscoes, Noel Leeming, Farmers and Harvey Norman, and found that customers could have picked up the same items at a similar or lower price over the three-month investigation. 

Consumer NZ's Head of Research Gemma Rasmussen told Heather duPlessis-Allan that, 'there's so much hype around Black Friday, but the deals are a little dubious.'

She said that it's important consumers do their research before hitting the shops. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Black Friday. Speaking of spending the dollars. If you're
like me, you've already got yourself a good deal, waited
for it, and then nabbed it. But there are also
some halves out there. What a surprise consumer has been
keeping an eye out for US. Jimma Rasmunsen is the
head of research and Advocacy and with US High Gemma. Hello, okay,
what are the bad deals that are not really deals?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Well, we looked at pricing over about three months because
we wanted to get a sense of are the deals genuine,
And what we found was that about half of the
products that are supposedly on sale today, shoppers could have
found them for about the same price or a lower
price at some point in the last three months. So
it really kind of shows that there's so much hype

(00:43):
around Black Friday, but the deals are a little dubious.
There are some to be had, There are some in there,
but a lot it's a bit of pottier.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Have you found any ones that are not that have
been cheaper in the last while than they actually are today?

Speaker 2 (00:59):
So we have found that there are some deals, like
there are some deals to be had. One thing that
we found so Harvey Norman and Farmers they had stick
back that was priced at one and ninety nine dollars,
So that was for nine out of fourteen weeks for

(01:19):
having Norman, and for every week with Farmers and with
Black Friday it is five hundred and ninety nine dollars.
So this is genuinely cheaper. There are a few others though,
where they're actually just like a dollar or two cheaper
and the savings are not really as meaningful. So that's
a little bit tricky. You could say, yeah, it's cheaper.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
And apparently for Hosking who loves the dice and stick vacuum,
that's actually a proper bargain today, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
It is a proper bargain. So I think that's kind
of what we want to be saying to people is
really it's about doing your research. There's websites like priced
Buy or price me where you can put the product
in and it's going to give you all of the
historical pricing dush, And we kind of feel the proof
is in the pricing, not in the marketing height that
you know, stop clear out big sale. If you can

(02:07):
look at that data, then there's absolutely deals to be had.
But it's just about being a little bit conscientious abou
where you put your money.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Good stuff, Jim Listen, thanks very much. Look after yourself
Jim Rasmussen, who is with Consumer New Zealand. For more
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