Slickdeals.net, Black Friday Deals, and more

Is it just me, or are they really stretching the definition these days of what a great deal is?

I peek in on Slick Deals from time to time, have a few "deal alerts" that I receive emails on if they come up, etc. But as I skimmed through this morning, I was struck by just how many "deals" are there than seem no better than what you'd get if you just walked into a store and paid regular price. Or the "slick" deal is a slight deal, not a slick one?

I view "slick" deals as those crazy kind of deals....your dash cam that normally sells for $99 is selling for $49 for today. You have a set of 4 tires that are $130 off, on tires that don't normally go on sale. Get a free Echo dot if you sign up for a free business account.

That kind of thing.

Not, smoke detector, $33.99...list price $49, but always sells for....$33.99.

Seeing a bunch of that these days. Or a "20% off" thing. Well, I guess if you were looking for it already, it's nice that it's 20% off, but that's not the "slick" deal I think of.

Is it just me? Or am I the only one that looks at these deal type of places?

(Black Friday--similar, in many respects. Some still great deals, IIRC from last year, but others not-so-much.)

There is a lot of spam going on anymore on the deals sites. Vendors push non-deals and drive up the votes as a means to generate traffic. As always, you have to do your research.

Great point about the spam and shill-posting.

I had a "deal alert" a couple of days ago for a power bank--always interested in picking those up for cheap when they are good ones. I've got 5 kids with electronics, and my wife and I, so those things are relevant.

Anyway, the "deal alerts" are not perfect, and I got an alert on a rechargeable heated winter vest for $79.99. Heck, it caught my attention -- I will be sitting outside in December, January and February watching my son's soccer games, and being out in the cold for 3 hours (pregame included) can be uncomfortable.

So I looked at it quickly on my phone, didn't look bad, made a note to go back and look at it later in more detail.

It disappeared. I found it later through google cache, and the best I can figure, it was a self-promoted type of post that wasn't really such a deal, so they booted it. Just a guess, but that's what I thought. Saw where it only had 15 total reviews on Amazon; didn't check to see if they were real or fake, or whatever.