Web tips for Black Friday shoppers
It’s Black Friday insanity — and the snarled lines and pushy shoppers that entails.
No worries, the World Wide Web is here to help frazzled shoppers find deals.
Got an Android smart phone or iPhone? Use it to access Dealmap, which has spent the last month laying out more than 165,000 deals across 52,000 retail locations nationwide for the shopping extravaganza the day after Thanksgiving.
Local businesses can also submit deals to the application.
Product inventory tracker Milo.com will be keeping a log of whether more than 5,000 products are still on shelves at local stores. The site has also prepared a handy field guide to surviving the retail rush, complete with footwear tips, how to pick battles with other aggressive shoppers and a warning to stay off Twitter (better to save those exclusive deals for yourself).
Coupons site Offers.com has narrowed down some consumer electronics deals. The list on Thursday included $150 savings on a Zenith 42-inch plasma TV from Kmart.
The discounts will be plentiful — Apple even released a teaser ad encouraging shoppers to “wrap it up” on Friday.
But few deals will be as social media-savvy as the one from Shoebuy.com. The website, using technology from Ifeelgoods Inc., is trying to entice buyers by offering 50 free Facebook credits with any purchase. The credits can be used on games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars.
Consumers should be aware, especially when shopping online. Poisoned websites packed with malware are lurking as shoppers search for hot holiday gifts, according to anti-virus software company F-Secure.
Search terms for popular products — such as “Kinect for Xbox,” “Call of Duty: Black Ops,” “ Amazon Kindle” and “ Apple iPad” — can lead to dangerous sites that could infect unprotected computers, the company said.
So shop safe: Try to go directly to a retailer’s site.
