Orange County Register

Buy.com will have its usual Black Friday sale on the day after Thanksgiving. But the Aliso Viejo Internet retailer is also prepping for what it expects to be its biggest day of the quarter so far: the day before Thanksgiving. It’s teamed up with online payment company PayPal to provide additional discounts.

Are the dot-com deals coming back? 

“To get to those prices at 85 percent off, we’re having partners come in and help,” said Jeff Wisot, Buy.com’s vice president of marketing.  ”On the day before Thanksgiving, PayPal is sponsoring that sale.”

Now… don’t get too excited. The only PayPal-sponsored deal Wisot shared with me was a $20 MP3 player that will include a $10 instant rebate if you use PayPal’s online payment service. Fifty percent is a nice discount, but I can’t imagine how good a $20 MP3 player can be in the first place. Let’s hope the PayPal savings goes beyond cheap electronic trinkets.

But back up. The Wednesday before Black Friday is a big shopping day?

“It’s an enormous day for us,” Wisot said. “It’s the biggest day of the quarter to date.”

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That is, it’s the biggest day of the quarter before Black Friday. Because of competitive reasons, Wisot won’t say if Wednesday sales have trumped Black Friday’s or the following Monday’s in prior years. And he’s not completely sure why people shop before Black Friday sales are available. But he has a few theories.

“They’re getting some shopping out of the way,” he said. “It’s very exciting when they see these crazy deals come out because a lot of the time, on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, they go to the site and everything is sold out. We put out several deals so people have a greater chance of getting everything they want.”

If the PayPal partnership does offer 85 percent discounts, I will definitely be stopping by Buy.com’s web site on Wednesday. In between working, of course.  

Other deals Wisot mentioned that Buy.com will put on sale either Wednesday, Black Friday or the following Monday: 

• Marshmallow shooter, which is like a super squirt gun that  shoots marshmallows (perhaps something like this?) will be under $10
• A Jabra Bluetooth headset, normally $40, will be under $10.
• A name-brand notebook is going to be $370.
• A 52-inch HDTV will be discounted over $1,000.
• 1,000 DVDs will be on sale
• Name-brand all-in-one printer will be under $20

Links to more Black Friday deals:

• Black Friday 2008 (bfads.net)
• BlackFriday.info
• Black Friday FAQ’s 

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