At first the classic, Black Friday, was adopted by Poland from the United States. Now it is time for its little internet brother – Cyber Monday. Both of these occasions share a common purpose – to promote huge sales in online stores. Here’s some advice on how to shop cheaper in foreign e-stores.
If we plan on shopping for big-ticket items, it is worth preparing for the end of November to benefit from promotional prices.
For quite some time, Black Friday was mainly known from American movies. This was a day, on which Americans were getting into their big cars, driving to the massive shopping centers, and after a few hours of hunting for sales, they lugged home huge bags filled with new items.
Everybody felt like a winner on that day: shopkeepers were happy about the outstanding turnout, and customers were, of course, pleased with extraordinary discounts. Black Friday is an unofficial American shopping holiday and a strong start to the Christmas shopping fever. Shops and shopping malls extend their opening hours on that day. Sometimes, offers of significant discounts are even available 24 hours a day. This happens every year on the first Friday after Thanksgiving, which Americans celebrate every year on the fourth Thursday of November. The day after the official national holiday, crowds form to look for sales.
However, the times have changed and the event has, to a great extent, moved to the internet. Nowadays, people often shop without leaving their homes. They order and pay online, and their packages are delivered to their doorstep or to delivery points. As nature has it, sellers invented the Cyber Monday. Chronologically speaking, this is the first Monday after Black Friday, and both these days share the same idea. The only difference is that the better known holiday refers to brick and mortar stores. Discounts that are a part of Cyber Monday are usually available online. Like Black Friday, this e-shopping holiday also came from the US to Europe, Poland included.
In many internet stores, Cyber Monday lasts for couple of days. According to material that was published on November 24 on Onet.pl/biznes, the tradition of holding sales at the end of November is statistically familiar to three out of four Poles, who will spend nearly 468 million PLN via online shopping between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Customers in Poland need to then settle whether they are going to take up offers from domestic or foreign e-stores. Gamers who dream of one of the next-gen gaming consoles (Xbox One or PlayStation 4) can find many interesting offers, out of which only some are available in Poland. However, the sales are related not only to Black Friday or Cyber Monday, but are also in correlation with the introduction of new versions of the devices mentioned above. This is why many stores organize the so-called emptying of magazines in order to make room for new products. As a result, the Microsoft Store in France has the Xbox One Elite set on sale for only 199 euro, which is 882.49 PLN. The same set in Polish electronic markets costs around 1400 PLN, and the Elite controller from this set alone costs around 500 - 600 PLN.
Interesting offers also await gaming gear amateurs from Sony. The PlayStation 4, in a set with the three top games on Amazon.de can be purchased for 299 euro, which translates to 1325.77 PLN. The price of the same item in a Polish online store can vary from 1600 to even 1900 PLN.
There are also items that are actually cheaper in Poland. The video camera, GoPro HERO 5 BLACK, is sold on Comonboard.pl for 1989 PLN, and in the German store, Conrad.com for 499.99 euro, which is 2212 PLN.
- There were many important events on the currency market over the last year. Most of all, there was a significant sell off of the British pound. In November 2015, it cost over 6 PLN, and now its price is lower by almost 1 PLN. There is a chance then, that some items in British internet stores may be significantly cheaper than those in Poland. The situation is totally different when it comes to the dollar or the euro. The European and the American currencies are approximately 0.15 PLN more expensive compared to what they were for Cyber Monday last year. This could mean that even when taking the discounts in the United States or Germany into consideration, it is worth only buying items with a significant discount – commented Marcin Lipka, Cinkciarz.pl’s senior financial analyst. How do we save money when taking advantage of the sales abroad? It is worth exchanging money in an online currency exchange company. Buying one thousand euro via Cinkciarz.pl enables customers to save up to 224.70 PLN, and when buying one thousand pounds, we can save around 260.20 PLN.