The Upgrade
The Bogus Tech ‘Deals’ to Avoid This Holiday Season
Here’s what you should buy — and give — instead
Have you started to put presents under the tree? Good for you. Are you ready for your family to return almost 10 percent of them? For the 2018 gift-giving season, the National Retail Federation predicts holiday sales between $717.45 billion and $720.89 billion, up almost 5 percent from last year. But if 2018 is anything like 2017, some $90 billion in retail goods will be returned.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Every year, I pore over the printed holiday circulars that still arrive to millions of American homes, identifying not the best deals, but the worst ones. I’m looking for the tech offers that sound good but will generate nothing but disappointment, which leads to those time-consuming returns.
There are still big shopping mistakes to be made across virtually all product categories, but none more so than in tech, where the promise of a good deal often ends in frustration.
Over the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve seen a marked improvement in the quality of products and deals offered in these flyers. It’s gotten so easy for so many…
