Are early Black Fridays specials deals or duds?

Many retailers are promoting early Black Friday and holiday sales - so should you buy now or wait?

Shopping insiders said before you feel compelled to purchase - pause.

"Retailers, almost all of them, just continuously lie to their customers about the supposed discounts they're offering," said Kevin Brasler with Consumers' Checkbook.

Consumers' Checkbook tracked prices for six months at 25 major retailers.

"What they're doing is just week after week, they're discounting off this list or regular price that's rarely, if ever, charged," Bressler said.

Checkbook's secret shoppers reveal at the vast majority of stores, the so-called limited-time sale prices are the perpetual prices.

"So don't pay attention to the savings, pay attention the price you're paying. That's all that matters," he said.

And even if a price does go up after dipping for a time, Brasler said don't worry.

On certain products like the Amazon Echo Dot and Google Nest Mini, the same sales often repeat multiple times throughout the year, so don't feel rushed.

Checkbook says one of the exceptions to the "do not rush" rule is Costco.

"If it's offering you a lower price than usual, often it's because that item is going to be discontinued so yeah, if you're thinking about buying it go ahead and scoop it up," he said.

Also scoop sales on Apple products, which aren't often discounted.

For everything else - to figure out if a supposed discount is a deal or a dud, use a price-check tool.

Sites including Keepa and CamelCamelCamel track prices on all kinds of products sold on Amazon.

Honey tracks prices for products at other retailers like Walmart and Best Buy.

Just add what you want to its Drop List, and Honey will track the price and email you when there's a price drop!

And Consumer Reports checks prices on a limited number of products, including Bose earbuds, the Nintendo Switch 2 Game Console, and the iPhone 16.

There are certain items experts say you should wait to buy: toys, appliances, and especially TVs. Shopping trends show that the lowest price of the year for those products are on Black Friday.