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Is Black Friday worth it? What the price-tracking research shows

Consumer group Which? has tracked Black Friday prices at major UK retailers for several years. The results have been strikingly consistent.

By Luke at DealSift. Updated 23 October 2026.

Year after year, the same pattern

95%of 83 deal products from Black Friday 2018 were the same price or cheaper at least once in the six months afterwards.
99.5%of 201 Black Friday 2020 deals were cheaper or the same price at another point in the year.
98%of 208 discounted products from Black Friday 2022 were cheaper or the same price at other times, and only five were at their best price on the day.

The studies covered big UK retailers including Amazon, Argos, AO, Currys and John Lewis, tracking each product's price for six months before and after the sale.

So is it a waste of time?

Not quite. The research doesn't say Black Friday prices are bad. Plenty of Black Friday prices are genuinely good ones. What it shows is that the same low price usually turns up again, before or after, so there's rarely a reason to panic-buy.

Which? also widened the window in the 2022 study to include the whole fortnight around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Even then, most products were cheaper or the same price at other times.

How to get the most out of it

  • Know the normal price of anything you're planning to buy before the sales start.
  • Use price history to judge a deal, not the discount badge.
  • Don't rush. If you miss a deal, the same price often returns.
  • Look beyond the day. Good prices also appear in other sales events and at random through the year.

Our guide on how to spot a fake Black Friday deal has a quick checklist.

That's why DealSift checks prices all year, not just in November. A deal only gets our 🔥 or ✅ label when the price is genuinely low for that product. How we check deals.

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