Best Buy Tries the Black Friday in July Promotion

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 5:23AM EST · Published Jul 24, 9:30AM EDT

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Best Buy Tries the Black Friday in July Promotion — © Michael Rivera / Wikimedia Commons

Among the marketing ploys retailers use, none is better than pretending a day during which huge numbers of shoppers hit the stores to a completely different date when very few people shop. Father’s Day in October. Back to School Day in May. Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY) employed what may be the most outrageous of all: Black Friday in July.

The promotion reads:

It’s hard to believe that the excitement of the Black Friday 2015 sale has already come and gone. Don’t worry, we are already counting down the days until the after-Thanksgiving sale next year, when the lowest prices roll out on the technology you’ve had your eye on all year. Save the date and get your wish list started for the Black Friday 2016 sale on November 25th.

It does not promise any of these prices might drop by the real Black Friday. For the customer, take your chances.

The promotion covers nearly every product and service category Best Buy has. And, with some special conditions, it offers free shipping on items “$35 and up.”

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The promotions also include a “Deal of the Day.” The most recent one was:

Beats by Dr. Dre – Geek Squad Certified Refurbished Powerbeats2 Wireless Earbud Headphones – Black

The retail price of the headphones was $199.99. Best Buy has dropped that to $79.99. Refurbished indeed.

Most of the items offered for Black Friday in July have only modest discounts. However, the notion of a sale during the summer may be compelling. It is an old marketing trick from Business 101. Who knows? It might work

Also see a seven-step plan to save Best Buy.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.