In recent years, laptop sales have declined rapidly in favor of tablets and smartphones, dropping by over 4.3% since 2017.
While there’s no doubting the convenience of these devices, they don’t compare to a laptop when it comes to superior memory and ease of use. Nobody enjoys typing on those tiny touch screens, do they?
A laptop may be essential for your studies or work-related activities, but that doesn’t mean you need to pay full price for it.
The best time of year to buy a laptop depends on a few factors. Here’s how to know when the time is right.
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The Best Time of Year to Buy a Laptop at the Sales
There are several top shopping days scattered throughout the year. These usually center around times of the year that are famous for booming retail sales.
At these times, there’s a lot of competition between retailers to attract buyers, so they’re inclined to offer some very attractive deals to win your favor. For more information on how to entice clients away from your rivals, visit this website: https://www.thetwincoach.com/
These are the top shopping days of the year:
Black Friday
Even before Black Friday became a thing, it was one of the busiest days of the year, taking place on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Through the years, this day has always heralded the start of the holiday shopping season.
With time on their hands and Christmas just around the corner, people have always spent more on this day.
Store owners soon began to view this day with mixed emotions. Not only did they experience a sense of dread at the thought of a busy day at work, but they also had the satisfaction of knowing their bank accounts would be ‘in the black’ afterward.
It wasn’t long before the name, ‘Black Friday’ stuck, and retailers started competing for business by offering crazy prices to attract more customers.
The trend soon spread to include Cyber Monday, dedicated to the best online deals of the year, and Travel Tuesday for booking vacations and airline tickets at discount prices.
Nowadays, Black Friday sales often extend for weeks on either side of the actual date, so you don’t have to fight the crowds on the day.
To this day, Black Friday remains one of the busiest and best shopping days of the year, although it’s lost some of its appeal due to all these extensions.
Cyber Monday
Cyber Monday is one of the offshoots of Black Friday. It came about as an attempt to encourage online shopping and relieve the pressure on stores during the Black Friday sales.
The concept took off, and Cyber Monday soon outstripped Black Friday in terms of sales and savings.
Ironically, most of the best deals available at this time of year have moved online lately, making cyber deals the only deals for many retailers in recent times.
Three-Day Weekends
Three-day weekends have always attracted droves of shoppers with extra time on their hands to the stores. So, it wasn’t long before retailers started to offer sales in the hopes of attracting more customers than their competitors.
Some of the busiest days of the year in this category if you’re looking for laptop deals include President’s Day and Memorial Day.
Amazon Prime Day
Amazon Prime Day usually occurs in October and is exclusive to Prime members. For two days, the online store offers incredible deals on a wide variety of goods, including laptops. You save up to 300 dollars on the price of a new laptop on Amazon Prime Day.
You can join Amazon Prime for a few dollars a month and enjoy regular savings throughout the year outside of this special event too.
Back-to-School Season
This is another busy time for retailers across the country as students prepare for another school year. Labor Day, recognized as the unofficial end of summer, usually signifies the start of back to school season.
In recent years, Back to School shopping’s been starting earlier every year, so you can start looking for good deals from around August.
Other Top Shopping Times for Laptops
There are plenty of other times during the year when retailers offer excellent savings on laptops outside of sale season.
January is a good time to snap up bargains as retailers try to get rid of excess holiday stock.
Most Microsoft brands bring out their new models between February and April. This means you’ll get good deals on last year’s models at this time. New Apple models come out in September.
Buyer Beware
Retailers have got a few tricks up their sleeves when it comes to drawing the crowds on these major sale days. These are the things to look out for.
Some retailers intentionally inflate their prices for a week or two before these popular sales so that their prices look better on the day.
If you’re shopping for a laptop, start comparing prices early so that you know you’re truly getting the best deal. You can visit pickcheaplaptops.com to get the price of traditional laptops and best2in1laptops.com to know the prices of 2-in-1 laptops. You can also use a price history tool or an online price aggregator tool to check whether stores are being honest about their discounts.
Laptop manufacturers are sometimes guilty of a far more sinister crime. Sometimes they produce particular models specifically for these sale days. These are usually inferior in some way to the original and offered at incredibly low prices.
Many retailers start offering their Black Friday deals early. While this is a necessary safety precaution during 2020, it does rob you of the benefits of comparing prices on the day.
Often, retailers offer unbelievable deals on highly sought-after items. These things sell out within minutes of the store opening its doors.
So, when you arrive intent on buying a laptop, you feel obligated to buy the next-best-priced item, with no chance to compare prices.
Don’t let seemingly fantastic bargains cloud your judgment. You should do just as much research for the best laptop deals at these times as you would if you were paying full price.
Other Ways to Save When You Buy a Laptop
One way to get a new laptop and pay less is to invest in a refurbished model. These types of laptops are as good as new, having undergone a complete service by highly trained technicians.
They’re also an eco-friendly option since they repair, refresh, and resell laptops that would otherwise have ended up in a landfill somewhere.
A second-hand laptop’s also a cheaper option although you never really know why the previous owner decided to part ways with it and you could discover problems down the line.
If you’ve got your heart set on a new laptop and the sales are too far away there are still more options to save when buying a laptop.
You can sign up for programs like Rakuten or Swagbucks to get rewards and cashback offers when you buy your laptop. Many laptop manufacturers are on board with these programs and you can pick up some great deals this way.
A cash-back credit card may also offer a small discount when you use it to buy expensive items like laptops.
These credit cards don’t offer you cash immediately. They pay out once a year, so you could receive a nice bonus after twelve months of accumulated savings.
Make sure you know exactly what you need before buying a laptop. It’s easy to get swept off your feet by an in-store salesman and end up with a well-priced laptop that’s hopelessly inadequate for your needs.
Some of the things to consider when choosing your perfect laptop include:
- Display size
- Resolution
- Portability
- Processor capabilities
- Battery life
- Port compatibility
One of the main priorities that people overlook is their comfort. While shopping, ask if you can see an example of the type of laptop you’re interested in.
Open up the laptop and check that you’re comfortable working the keyboard. If you can’t type comfortably on the laptop, you could find yourself suffering from aches and strains after a few hours of working on your new laptop.
Always ask about warranties and return policies when shopping for laptops too.
The Best Time to Buy a Laptop Could Be Right Now
Overall the best time of year to buy a laptop is when you need one. Nowadays, with more people earning a living from home than ever before, you could lose more money waiting for the sales than if you buy a new laptop right away.
It’s important to weigh your options carefully whenever you consider buying expensive items.
For more news and information about modern-day conveniences, keep browsing our blog.
