Thanks to a strong holiday season for TV manufacturers, there won’t be as many big deals on HDTVs for Super Bowl season.
Last year at this time, TV sales were huge, but that’s mainly because Black Friday 2010 was weak for the TV industry, and retailers ended up with a large excess of inventory. As such, they used the Super Bowl hype to offload as many sets as possible.
This year, that is not nearly as much of a problem. Black Friday TV specials were fantastic this past holiday season, and in the weeks that followed, TV sales far surpassed the previous year’s numbers.
Displaysearch analyst Paul Gagnon was quoted by USA Today as saying consumers can expect to “see a lot of advertising” as the big game draws near. Obviously the Super Bowl is still a catalyst for a large amount of TV sales.
“I don’t know that the deals (will) be especially stellar,” Gagnon continued.
In addition to the strong holiday season, retail spending is up across the board. There’s a different set of circumstances in play than there was this time last year.
Those models that do receive large discounts will mostly be older sets that retailers want to get rid of. The brand new, fully loaded TVs will be advertised as the best way to watch the Super Bowl, but consumers may have to pay full price for them.
This year’s match-up between the Giants and Patriots includes two very large markets and a storied rivalry, meaning there are plenty of fans to target.
