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HTC and T-Mobile are among the vendors offering discounts during the post-Thanksgiving weekend, which is all too well known for its bargains, dearth of parking spots and instances of otherwise sane people shopping at ungodly hours.
According to a Nov. 21 survey from Retrevo, an online electronics shopping site, last year 24 percent of Black Friday shoppers left with the gadgets they wanted – and 48 percent got what they wanted plus more.
T-Mobile, which surely hopes to help shoppers suit their fancies, will, from Nov. 27 through Nov. 29, be knocking $50 off the price of three of its phones.
The Motorola Cliq, which runs Google’s Android operating system and features Motorola’s social-savvy MotoBlur feature, will be available for $149.99 with a two-year contract.
The BlackBerry Bold 9700, which features Wi-Fi calling, will also be $149.99 with a two-year contract; and the Samsung Highlight, a petite phone with a 3-inch touchscreen will be just $49.99 with a two-year service agreement.
T-Mobile will also be offering a program called Even More Plus, which makes it easier to purchase a phone as a gift and pay it off in several interest-free payments.
HTC’s holiday promotion also begins Nov. 27 but will run through Dec. 31. During that time, anyone who upgrades their “eligible” smartphone for an HTC Tilt 2, HTC Touch Pro2, HTC Imagio or HTC Ozone can trade in their old smartphone for $100 from HTC.
Depending on their carrier, consumers can plug in the promotional code they receive with their purchase at:
Verizon: www.htctradein.com/htc-smartphone
T-Mobile: www.htctradein.com/t-mobile
AT&T: www.htctradein.com/att
The site will then offer a mailing label that a consumer can use to send in his or her old smartphones and copies of the UPC code and invoice for the new phone. In exchange, HTC will mail back a check for $100.
A list of eligible phones, which includes the Apple iPhone and iPhone 3G, the Palm Treo 700p, the RIM BlackBerry 7780 and 7750, and the Samsung BlackJack II, is available here.
In the Retrevo survey, the numbers of electronics shoppers planning to brave the stores this year are nearly equal with those planning to shop online. Among the online shoppers, 22 percent said they planned to spend more than $1,000 on Black Friday, while 18 percent of those planning to visit stores said they intended to spend the same.
The majority of both sets of shoppers reported that they planned to spend between $200 and $500 on what’s widely considered the first major holiday shopping day.