Best deals from Black Friday 2009 ads: Use your smartphone

"That’s a pretty significant number. A quarter of all of your customers are using smart phones and the technology that it enables -- comparison shopping, communication -- on a level that hasn’t existed in previous years," says Doug Farmer, senior director of program management for Convergys. "If you’re a web retailer and your web app is not conducive, not configured in a way that makes it easily navigated on smartphones ... it means you lose a lot of sales."

Although retailers are racing to get their websites up to mobile snuff and developers hammer out mobile applications, even some consumers with smartphones regard their mobile devices a bit warily when actually sealing a purchase, using them more for comparison shopping than actual purchasing.

"There is a psychological hurdle still to climb for people not just to comparison shop or find coupons from their phone," says dealnews.com editor-in-chief Dan de Grandpre. The company released an iPhone app that allows users to comb through deals from a wide number of retailers, create shopping lists, and receive a dedicated feed for the latest deals.

For all of their power to upend the way customers decide what products to buy, they might also have an equally disrupting effect on a customer's feelings about the product after the purchase. Up-to-the-minute sales updates can shorten the interval between purchase and buyers remorse. While standing in a long Black Friday checkout line, consumers can go over their purchases one last time to make sure they're really the best deals.

"Most stores have a very liberal return policy – especially if you haven’t walked out the door yet," Mr. de Grandpre says. "If you have some buyers remorse and you’re still in the parking lot, walk back in."

See also:

On Black Friday sales 2009, can Amazon compete with Wal-Mart?

The story behind the leak of Wal-Mart's Black Friday deals

Are Black Friday’s years numbered?

On Black Friday 2009, will Best Buy or online stores win?

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— David Grant is a Monitor contributor. What are the best Black Friday deals on the market right now? Let us know on Twitter.

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