Black Friday Deals
Strategize your Black Friday 2014 shop fest by finding the best deals
Thanksgiving is a fine holiday, but its true importance comes when it is over and people decide that it's time to go shopping for new things to be thankful for. After all, if something is on sale, then it's vitally necessary to possess it. You'll find room.
Of course, a sale is only as good as the percentage points being knocked off, so WalletHub has done a study to find the chain stores most worth camping out in front of. For its findings, WalletHub surveyed 5,525 deals from the 2014 BlackFriday ad scans of 22 of the biggest U.S. retailers.
If you only have time to hit one place, then JC Penney is your best bet: It has the highest overall discount rate at 65 percent. On the flip side, Costco is relatively stingy at 21 percent overall, though Black Friday is not meant for bulk toilet paper purchases (unless you ate the whole turkey).
Macy's and Sears both make the top five, with 54 and 50 percent respectively, while Amazon and Big Lots join Costco at the bottom. If you figure out how to Black Friday-stampede Amazon, then please share that footage with us.
Although Walmart and Best Buy are the faces of Black Friday, they round out the bottom five for lowest discount percentages, making them Black Friday traps, especially because video games, consumer electronics, and computers and phones are among the least discounted categories overall.
Basically, don't spend your money on a flat screen at Best Buy when you can get jewelry. At 58 percent, it is the most discounted category and the best bang for your buck. Elsewhere, it's a great time to pick up books, movies and music or apparel and accessories, which are also deeply discounted items on Black Friday.
So when the sun sets on Thanksgiving and the lines build up, remember to avoid that new tablet and instead put a ring on it from somewhere other than Walmart. Or just wait until Cyber Monday.
To see how all the retailers ranked overall and by category, visit WalletHub.