Why Experts Say October Is The Worst Month To Buy Anything
Big retailers are not your friend in October, according to the experts.
cottonbro studio | Pexels If you’re thinking about buying Christmas gifts early this year, you might want to reconsider. As nice as it would be to have all of your holiday shopping done as soon as possible, it turns out that it may hurt your wallet. Experts say that October is actually the worst month to buy anything.
This may seem confusing since logic says getting your end-of-the-year shopping done early would be a good thing, but the way that retailers handle pricing at this point in the year is tricky. In fact, logic kind of goes out the window, and beating the holiday rush becomes irrelevant if you’re looking for a good deal.
A magazine editor who has made a career out of shopping trends said that now is the absolute worst time to make a purchase.
Bryce Gruber shared her top tips for navigating this time of year in a post on TikTok. “This is the most expensive time of year to do your shopping, period,” she shared.
Gruber, who has “been studying shopping data and trends for the last 20 years,” insisted that the end of September through the beginning of October is the worst time to go shopping, and it all has to do with the biggest shopping day of the year, Black Friday. “All of these big retailers, your Amazons, your Walmarts, your Targets, Nordstroms … they use the average sales price for the last four to eight weeks, depending on the retailer, to come up with their Black Friday/Cyber Monday pricing,” she continued.
So, naturally, to make as much money as possible, retailers inflate prices around October so they’re still making something when they sell you goods at a steep discount come Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It turns out it’s not really all that much of a discount because they already increased the price to begin with. Independent businesses that have special deals and sales like Amazon’s October Prime Day are exceptions to the rule, Gruber said.
October is when retailers typically raise their prices to make up for the end-of-year sales period.
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A new online retailer called Rarely wants you to know that October is a horrible time to buy from retailers like Amazon as well. Admittedly, Rarely is launching in October, so you might want to take their advice with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, a brand representative explained why now is not the time to shop on Rarely’s TikTok account.
“The way that it works is that Amazon forces sellers to take the average price over the previous six weeks to set their Black Friday sales price,” he said. “So what brands end up doing is around October 1st, they start jacking up their prices because they want that six-week average to be as high as they possibly can so that they can fake the discount.”
Just as Gruber said, that discount you’re getting on Black Friday may not really be all that great because the company probably hiked prices up before they took the discount off. “They’ll double their price just so they can cut the price in half for Black Friday,” he said.
So, if you can avoid shopping in October, definitely do so.
Obviously, you probably can’t avoid shopping altogether, but putting off as many purchases as you can, especially big ones, is a good idea. NerdWallet contributor Laura McMullen agreed that October is a month when you should forego buying any clothing or electronics if possible. These are items you would typically purchase at retailers like Amazon, Target and Walmart.
Although it’s enticing to get all of your holiday shopping, and any other shopping you may need to do before the year’s end, done as early as you can, saving time won’t save you money. And, really, when you’re so close to things like Black Friday and holiday sales, why not just wait a little bit longer?
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
