Hasta La Gadget!

Not to be outdone by Walmart, who recently announced that they’d be preemptively matching select competing Black Friday deals starting tomorrow, Amazon will be opening their vault of Black Friday discounts starting this Saturday the 23rd. New deals will become available as frequently as every 10 minutes, and will include everything from a $29 Chromecast to Grand Theft Auto V for $34, along with a slew of HDTV deals and the HTC One for a penny. [Amazon Press Release]

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This year we’re dedicating ourselves to making your Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping as painless as possible. We’re surfacing all the best deals on the products you actually care about in an easily digestible, ever-updating guide. We’ll not only ensure you don’t miss the bargain you’ve been holding out for all year, but that you don’t spend the night in line only to have the Best Buy be sold out of that TV you wanted. As tempting as that Little Caesar’s Pizza looks, we’re shooting to get you everything you want from the comfort of your couch.

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While Black Friday is mostly for the brick-and-mortar stores, online shopping was a big hit that day as well, reaching over $1 billion in sales for the first time ever. However, Cyber Monday wasn’t any less impressive. Sales for that day have topped an estimated $2 billion, marking a new record as well, and it could be a sign that the economy is slowly starting to step out of a rut.

According to estimates from Adobe‘s Dig­i­tal Index, online shopping on November 26 (Cyber Monday) grew 17% from last year to hit $1.98 billion. Shopping on mobile devices made up 22% of all Cyber Monday sales according to Adobe’s estimates, and toys, sporting goods, and health and beauty products were the retail categories that showed the most growth.

Adobe also states that social networks were responsible for only 2% of referral traffic to retail websites, but both Facebook and Twitter combined to account for 77% of all referrals from social networks. While Cyber Monday deals might have seemed underwhelming to some, it seems a lot of people were able to spot great deals this year.

Overall, from November 1 to November 23, $13.7 billion has been spent online, which is a 16% increase from last year. This year’s Black Friday sales resulted in a 26% increase from last year’s Black Friday. Thanksgiving Day was also a busy time to buy online. Shoppers spent a total of $633 million for a 32% increase compared to last year’s Thanksgiving Day.

Cyber Monday sales reach $2 billion is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of partying with a bunch of my friends. All of them are pretty big nerds, just like me. If you’re a nerd too, you know that not much changes when a bunch of nerds get a few drinks in them, they just talk about nerdy things louder than usual. Therefore, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to hear that the Steam autumn sale was among the topics that came up that night.

“So what do you think of the autumn sale?” one of my friends asked.

“Not impressed,” I replied. The look his face indicated that he agreed with me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good deal as much as the next gamer, and I am always willing to spill some serious cash during a Steam sale. I went into the autumn sale thinking that I was going to be buying up games left and right, but we’ve now entered the final day of the sale and so far I’ve purchased two games for a grand total of $17.48. I’m in fine standing with both my bank and my girlfriend as a result, but I can’t help but feel a little underwhelmed.

There have been some good deals, to be sure – earlier in the sale, Skyrim took the stage as a featured deal, and right now Dishonored and Torchlight II, the latter of which being one of my 2012 favorites, are both 50% off. The problem, though, is that there’s going to be another Steam sale in less than a month. It’ll be big too, as Steam holiday sales always are. The autumn sale just pales in comparison to the blowout events that the holiday and summer sales have traditionally been, which leaves me wondering why we even need the autumn sale in the first place.

I understand why the autumn sale exists – everyone is going nuts over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so Valve holds a sale of its own to net some of the shoppers who have cash and are ready to spend it, provided the deals are good enough. With the autumn sale, however, it’s hard to get excited in the same way I’m excited for the holiday sale. In fact, it feels like the autumn sale is intentionally watered down in anticipation of the incoming holiday sale. It’s shorter than its summer and holiday siblings, there aren’t any publisher catalogs on offer, and the discounts don’t seem as deep. So, what’s the point when the holiday sale is knocking on the door?

Maybe this is all in my head. Maybe the problem is with me and not with the sale itself. With the holiday sale on the horizon, I’m hesitant to spend money during the autumn sale because there’s a feeling that they might be even cheaper in just a few short weeks. Even if I see a deal I know is good on a game I’ve been wanting to play, I question whether or not I should take advantage of it since I know (or at least assume) I’ll spend a lot of money during the holiday sale.

I can’t be the only one who feels that way, can I? I’d be interested to see how many people bite during the autumn sale in comparison to the summer and holiday sales, because I would imagine that the numbers for the autumn sale end up falling short. Valve – and other digitial distribution platforms for that matter – have something of a unique problem here. Most retailers don’t hold a holiday sale on the scale of Valve’s, only hosting massive sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Since PC gamers are used to blowout holiday sales and therefore expect them year after year, it makes pulling off an equally impressive Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale a bit trickier for those in the digital distribution arena.

What about you – has this been a great sale for you, or are you like me and feeling a little underwhelmed at the end of it all?

Do we really need the Steam autumn sale? is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Well Black Friday is over. Maybe you scored some deals, maybe you stayed in this year. Either way, Cyber Monday is here to drag you back for another round of insanely discounted shopping. We found, ranked, and sorted all the Cyber Monday deals (and non-deals) for you. Here’s your definitive guide for Digital Shopping D-Day. More »