42 of the 222 products we price every day at Barnes & Noble, Costco, Lenovo and Newegg cost less on Oct 10 than on Oct 5, 48 days before Black Friday; Lenovo desktops have the most price cuts, 3 of 5.

The early cuts arrive as consulting firm AlixPartners forecasts holiday season sales will rise 4% to 7%, even though 57% of Americans say they are worse off than a year ago.¹ Deloitte's 2026 Holiday Retail Survey puts average household holiday spend at $1,654, up 4% from $1,595 in 2025, and finds that 22% of shoppers plan to start earlier than last year, with October sales gaining momentum, up 18 percentage points since 2023.⁴

Is it better to buy now or wait for Black Friday?

The answer depends on the category. For popular toys, Brie Schwartz, editorial commerce director at Good Housekeeping, told KCRA that shoppers should not wait: "If you see something at a good price that you know your kid will like, I wouldn't wait until Cyber Week." She warned that sought-after items can sell out before Black Friday.⁵

For big-ticket electronics such as TVs and large appliances, Schwartz advised holding off unless the item is urgently needed. "If you don't need a new TV, I would say hold off on that as well," she said.⁵ Google's When to Buy Guide, based on historical discount data across U.S. merchants, adds nuance by category: fragrance deals do not typically deepen as Christmas approaches, handbags may see better prices in mid-December, and motorized tech toys can see steeper markdowns in the final weeks of December.³

For the four retailers in this basket, the real test comes later: the chart's Black Friday discount check, which measures each product's Nov 24 price against its 8-week low, will show whether today's cuts hold or deepen. Of the 42 products already cheaper, the deepest moves are at Lenovo, where the median desktop price drop is 28.8%.

Which retailers cut prices earliest?

Among the four retailers tracked here, Lenovo is cutting earliest and deepest: 3 of its 5 desktops are cheaper on Oct 10 than on Oct 5, with a median change of negative 28.8%. Newegg Black Friday sales activity is also visible in the basket, contributing to the 42 products with price cuts across all four retailers.

Beyond this basket, Lowe's announced on Oct 13 that it will launch Black Friday deals on Oct 29, giving loyalty members early access to doorbuster prices one day before the public on Nov 27.² Amazon, Target and Walmart held October sales events on Oct 6 and 7.⁵ During those two Prime Big Deal Days, 37 of the 214 products in this basket cost less than on Oct 5 on at least one of the two days, showing that the October sales wave reached prices at these four retailers as well.

Lowe's is also hosting a 12 Days of Deals event and December Deal Drops running from Dec 3 through Christmas Eve, extending the promotional window across the full season.² The pattern points to a holiday calendar where meaningful discounts are spread from late October through late December rather than concentrated in a single week.

How do this year's early deals compare with last year?

Direct year-over-year price comparisons for this basket are not available: the tracker began on Oct 5, 2026, and has only 6 collection days so far, so there is no equivalent 2025 data set to compare against. What the sources do show is that the broader October promotional environment has grown. Deloitte finds October sales gaining momentum among consumers, up 18 percentage points since 2023, and 22% of shoppers say they plan to start holiday shopping earlier than last year.⁴

Adobe projects Black Friday sales will rise 9.2% from last year to $12.9 billion, and Cyber Week sales are expected to grow 7.4% year over year to $47.5 billion.²