Top-Brand Big-Screen TVs Priced to Sell in Black Friday Circulars
Smartphones and tablets are joining TVs this holiday season as advertised doorbusters for Black Friday sales. Not typically one to jump in prominently in the seasonal fray, Apple is touted in several Black Friday events with the older generation iPad Mini listed as one of the guaranteed products in a one-hour Walmart event Thanksgiving night ($299 for a 16 GB iPad mini with a $100 Walmart gift card). And Apple is the sole CE product in the spotlight in Walmart’s Friday morning doorbuster, where stores will sell an iPhone 5C for $45 and an iPhone 5S for $189. The prices aren’t new -- Walmart dropped the prices on both phones in October to come in under the competition (Best Buy sells its for $50), but the gift cards are. The iPhones will come with a $75 Walmart gift card on Black Friday with the purchase of a phone and two-year activation.
Best Buy is lopping $100 off the price of the 16 GB iPad 2 (to $299) for its Black Friday sale, with prices valid Nov. 28-30. The seventh-generation iPod Nano is a Best Buy doorbuster at $99 ($50 off). Like Staples, Best Buy is offering the Samsung Galaxy 4 for free, with two-year activation, across AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. Quantities at both retailers are limited. Best Buy has turned to color for differentiation, with its version of the Galaxy 4 an exclusive “blue Arctic,” according to its ad.
Radio Shack has a different spin on the Galaxy S4 in its Black Friday ad. The phone is sale-priced at $49 via the top three carriers with two-year contracts on new activations only, and includes a $50 online credit from Visa that brings the value of the deal in line with other offers. The $50 Visa credit extends to other phones Radio Shack carries, including the iPhone 5c, which has a listed Black Friday price of $49. The colorful Apple entry-level smartphone has been widely reported to be selling below expectations.
TVs are hitting significant price points for tier-one suppliers, according to Black Friday ads we've seen. A Samsung 65-inch LED-lit LCD TV will slip in under $1,000 during Best Buy’s advertised doorbuster sale ($999 with free shipping) Thanksgiving night and a 55-inch LG model will fall to $499 with free shipping. Both are listed as Best Buy exclusives. At Walmart, Vizio’s 70-inch Smart LED TV, featured Sunday in a Walmart commercial during NFL football games, will be a doorbuster at $998 at the retailer’s 6 p.m. in-store Thanksgiving sale.
PC bundles will be widely available this season as manufacturers try to salvage the year after disappointing sales lost to tablets and smartphones. A Toshiba Intel Core i3 15-inch laptop bundle, currently $399, will be a Best Buy Black Friday doorbuster at $349, including a laptop sleeve, wireless mouse and flash drive. Staples’ Black Friday ad shows eight laptops ranging from $249 to $429 and higher price models at up to $250 with mail-in rebate. A Toshiba Intel Atom-based Encore tablet, discounted $30 to $299, will come in above Toshiba’s 15-inch laptop with an AMD quad-core processor ($249) during Staples’ Black Friday sale.
Top-tier point-and-shoot digital cameras are fast approaching stocking stuffer prices. In Staples’ Black Friday ad, the retailer shows Canon PowerShot cameras with 5x and 8x optical zoom at $69 and $99. Best Buy is selling a 5x optical zoom Canon PowerShot as a doorbuster for $79 but tossing in an SD card and camera case.