UouMi: Amazon Trick to Find Out If Your Black Friday Deal Is Actually Cheap or Not

As the digital doors open for Black Friday, an Amazon browser extension reveals that not all sales are the bargains they claim to be.

Shoppers are finding that some Amazon retailers have been inflating prices ahead of Black Friday only to slash them back to their original numbers using a free online browser extension that shows the price history of products on Amazon, thus creating the illusion of a steal.

It's a revelation that comes as consumers are expected to spend $567 each over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, according to Deloitte, a 13 percent increase from last year.

The Keepa browser extension, an add-on for Amazon customers like 44-year-old designer Louis Torres, is providing a window into the past prices of products, and it's exposing a Black Friday pricing manipulation strategy that may sour the shopping season for some.

"My wife needed a new display TV for her office, I could've bought this for her birthday in October," Torres shared with Newsweek, looking at the price history chart of a 75-inch Toshiba Fire TV. The Black Friday deal showed a drop to $499.99 from $799.99, but the chart revealed that it was priced at $499.99 at the start of October, only to be hiked up to $799.99 mid-month and then reduced again to $499.99 just before the sale.

That practice is far from an isolated incident, Newsweek found on Amazon. It seems to be part of a broader pattern affecting a range of brands and products, from 65-inch Toshiba smart TVs to Ninja blenders.

The strategy is straightforward, yet Torres says it is deceptive. Retailers hike up the prices of items weeks before the holiday, only to announce dramatic cuts—ostensibly Black Friday discounts—that are a return to original pricing. The tactic, which is not new but under scrutiny with tools like Keepa, is part of why Black Friday's luster may be diminishing for some consumers.

"I don't plan on shopping this Black Friday," 23-year-old Austin Scarpelli told Newsweek, noting that "it feels like the excitement of getting a big discount is just carefully crafted." Scarpelli said that he'd rather wait for a truly good offer outside of the holiday hype.

Newsweek has reached out to Amazon via email for comment.

Last year, a study by the comparison site PriceSpy found increases in retail prices during the run-up to Black Friday. Their data, covering over 6,100 stores, revealed that from October 1 to November 15, about 31 percent of monitored products saw a price increase—and notably, 17 percent of the products' prices surged more than 10 percent, with beauty care products being the most affected.

PriceSpy's U.K. manager Liisa Matinvesi-Bassett said last year that "fake sales" for Black Friday "may be much more widespread than in recent years."

Other categories weren't immune either. PriceSpy found last year that computer components, outdoor footwear, and kitchen appliances reported price manipulations of 18 percent, 16 percent, and 15 percent, respectively.

Here are a few examples of this on Amazon that Newsweek found for this year's Black Friday.