Before lining up at a retail store or firing up your computer for Black Friday bargains this week, ask yourself one question: Have you ever scored a great deal from the annual post-Thanksgiving shopping bonanza?

在到零售店排队或打开电脑为黑色星期五做准备之前，先问自己一个问题：在这一年一度的感恩节后大扫货中，你曾经捡到过大便宜吗？

If you were hard-pressed to think of something, you would not be alone. Black Friday, which has traditionally been the moment to flock to stores for steep discounts, and which has evolved to also include major online sales events for retailers like Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart, is not all that it is billed to be. We asked J. D. Levite, the deals editor of the product recommendations website The Wirecutter, for some data on just how beneficial the deals are on Black Friday — and the answer was not encouraging.

如果你很难想起什么，不奇怪。黑色星期五传统上是涌向商店获取大幅折扣的时刻，并已发展到包括亚马逊(Amazon)、百思买(Best Buy)和沃尔玛(Walmart)等零售商的大型在线销售活动，但实际情况跟标榜的有所不同。黑五究竟能带来多少实惠？我们就此询问了产品推荐网TheWirecutter的特惠编辑J·D·莱维特(J. D. Levite)，答案令人沮丧。

Year round, Mr. Levite and his team track product prices across the web to unearth discounts on goods of all types, from gadgets to kitchenware. They also look at whether the product is high quality and durable based on their own testing and other reviews, and whether the seller or brand has a reasonable return or warranty policy. By those measures, Mr. Levite said, only about 0.6 percent, or 200 out of the approximately 34,000 deals online, which typically carry the same price tags inside retailers’ physical stores, will be good ones on Black Friday.

莱维特和他的团队会全年对网上的产品价格进行跟踪，以发掘从电子产品到厨具等各类商品的折扣。他们还根据自己的测试和其他的评价来判断产品质量和耐用性如何，以及销售商或品牌是否提供合理了的回报或保修政策。莱维特说，经过这些衡量，在黑色星期五只有大约0.6％的网上优惠是划算了——也就是大约3.4万个优惠中的200个，网上标价通常与零售商实体店铺内是一致的。

“There are just more deals on that day than any other day of the year,” he said. “But for the most part, the deals aren’t anything better than what you’d see throughout the rest of the year.”

“这一天只是比一年中的其他日子有更多的优惠而已，”他说。“但在大多数情况下，这些优惠都没有比你在全年其他时间里看到的更好。”

There’s a smarter way to shop than relying on Black Friday. With the plethora of web tools now available, consumers can research online and then use trackers to follow product pricing for drops throughout the year. While it’s a time-consuming effort, the method is more precise for understanding pricing trends, both online and in stores.

有一个不依赖黑色星期五的更聪明的购物方法。如今网络工具多如牛毛，消费者可以在网上做功课，然后用跟踪器来全年跟踪产品的价格，等待降价。虽然这很费时，但可以更精确地了解线上线下的价格趋势。

One useful tracking tool is Camel Camel Camel, which is geared toward users of the online retail behemoth Amazon. Using the Camel Camel Camel website, people can view a product’s price history on Amazon.com and then create alerts to receive an email as soon as the item’s price falls to a certain threshold.

其中一个有用的跟踪工具是针对网上零售巨头亚马逊的用户开发的Camel Camel Camel。在Camel Camel Camel网站上，人们可以看到亚马逊网站上产品的历史价格，然后创建提醒，当商品的价格一降到某一阈值，就会收到一封电子邮件。

Over time, interesting trends emerge. One is that some product prices are raised in October, a few weeks before Black Friday. The prices are reduced again on Black Friday.

经过一段时间，有趣的趋势出现了。其中之一是，一些产品的价格在十月上调，也就是黑色星期五几周前。然后在黑色星期五再次降低。

Mr. Levite cited the example of the Basis Peak Ultimate Fitness and Sleep Tracker, which was listed on Amazon at around $150 in September. At the beginning of November, the gadget shot up to $170. This week, the price fell back down to $150.

莱维特举了Basis Peak健身和睡眠跟踪器的例子，这种产品在亚马逊上九月份列出的价格是150美元。在十一月初暴涨到170美元。本周回落至150美元。

“We do not raise prices ahead of Black Friday deals to make deals look more attractive,” Sarah Gelman, an Amazon spokeswoman, said.

“我们不会为了让优惠更诱人而在黑色星期五前提价，”亚马逊发言人莎拉·吉尔曼(Sarah Gelman)说。

Camel Camel Camel’s database also shows some items have predictable pricing patterns over the course of a year. A pair of bookshelf speakers made by Pioneer are typically $127, but that tends to drop significantly in August — to $60 in August 2014 and to $88 in August 2015, timed to the back-to-school season. This week, the same pair of speakers was again $127. In other words, there are times of year when different types of products decline in price — and Black Friday isn’t one of them.

Camel Camel Camel数据库还显示了在一年内定价有可预测规律的商品。一对先锋(Pioneer)书架式音箱通常卖127美元，但在八月份其价格会趋向显著下降——2014年八月降至60美元，2015年八月降至88美元，限时到开学季。本周，同一对音箱价格再次回到127美元。换句话说，一年中不同类型的产品有其价格下降的时段——黑色星期五不是其中之一。

Price tracking also illuminates the seasonality of products. Between June and August, when people are more likely to plan camping trips, tents often get heavier discounts on Amazon, for example. Camel Camel Camel’s database showed that a Coleman six-person tent cost $169 in August, but the price is now about $236.

价格跟踪也说明了产品的季节性。六月至八月间，人们更倾向于野营旅行，帐篷经常在亚马逊上有较大的折扣。例如，Camel Camel Camel的数据库表明，一顶Coleman六人帐篷八月份价格是169美元，但现在的价格约为236美元。

Other items rarely budge in price. A pair of high-end Bose headphones has stayed firm at $299 for over a year, according to Camel Camel Camel’s database. It wouldn’t hurt to buy items like this anytime you want, or to wait for the pricing to drop when a new version of the product is released.

其他商品价格很少让步。根据Camel Camel Camel数据库，一对高端的博士(Bose)耳机一年多来价格一直保持在299美元。在任何你想买的时间购买此类商品都不会吃亏，或者等到该产品新款上市后价格下降了再买。

Daniel Green, the founder of Camel Camel Camel, agreed with these assessments. “Shopping the Black Friday sales is no different from any other time,” he said.

Camel Camel Camel的创始人丹尼尔·格林(DanielGreen)也同意这些结论。“购黑色星期五的促销，其实和在别的时间消费也没什么差别。”

There’s still a way to take advantage of Black Friday by checking for price reductions on specific items — like a particular television set — that you have been wanting. I found a well-reviewed Vizio television that was $1,633 in April but dropped to $1,098 this month, according to Camel Camel Camel.

但是，通过对比特定商品的降价，黑色星期五也可以有划算的时候，例如你一直想买的某品牌电视机。根据Camel Camel Camel数据显示，我发现一款广受好评的Vizio牌电视机在四月的价格是1633美元，但这个月降价到1098美元。

Price tracking data also illustrate that the lack of real deals holds true for Cyber Monday, the Monday after Black Friday that is billed as an online shopper’s heaven with numerous digital discounts. Rendering the shopping event even more absurd, Walmart has said it would begin its Cyber Monday Sunday evening, so people wouldn’t have to stay up late to shop online.

价格追踪数据还显示，“网购星期一”(Cyber Monday)的优惠也缺乏诚意。那是“黑色星期五”后的周一，号称有大量的网购折扣。让这个购物活动更显荒诞的是，沃尔玛宣布将把“网购星期一”提前到周日晚上，这样人们就不需要熬夜下单了。

Of course it’s a tad late to start price tracking now. So for this week, try other web tools like PriceGrabber.com, which compares pricing of products across different retailers. On the website, you enter the name of a product, and the tool pulls up a search. Clicking the “Compare Now” button shows the bottom line pricing of the product (including tax and shipping costs) for various retailers.

当然，现在才开始价格追踪有些晚了。从这周起，可以尝试下其他网络比价工具，比如PriceGrabber.com网站。在该网站上，你可以输入商品名，系统会进行搜索；点击“Compare Now”（开始比较），就会显示出众多零售商关于该商品的最低报价（含税和运费）。

The New York Times also tested other shopping tools. They include ShopSavvy, an app for scanning item bar codes to do price comparisons online, and Slice, an app that tracks your previous purchases in case the price of something you recently bought gets marked down later, which may spur a refund.

《纽约时报》也试验了其他购物工具。包括ShopSavvy，这是一款扫描条形码进行在线比价应用；还有可以追踪你此前购物的Slice，如果你最近购买的商品大幅降价了，就可以考虑去退货。

Some shopping data suggests that consumers are wising up by shopping well ahead of Black Friday. About 25 percent of American consumers had already finished some holiday shopping before Halloween, according to a report from eMarketer, the research firm. The report also said 48 percent of American shoppers last year finished most of their holiday shopping by Cyber Monday, up from 40 percent the previous year.

购物数据显示，消费者开始了解到要在黑色星期五之前购物。根据调查机构eMarketer的报告，大约25%的美国消费者早在万圣节前就完成了部分节日购物。报告称，去年，48%的美国消费者在“网购星期一”前就解决了大部分的节日购物，比前年的40%有所提升。

Some retailers are opting out of Black Friday. Last month, the sporting goods retailer REI said its stores would close during Black Friday as part of a campaign urging people to go outside. Ben Steele, the chief creative officer of REI, said in an interview that the company made the decision after assessing the chaotic environment that Black Friday tends to create.

一些零售商决定退出黑色星期五的竞争。上月，运动产品零售商REI称，旗下门店将在黑色星期五闭门歇业，也是想号召人们多去户外的活动。REI公司的首席创意总监本·斯蒂尔(Ben Steele)在采访中说，该公司在评估黑色星期五会造成的混乱情况后，作出了这项决定。

“Do we want employees to leave their families early on Thanksgiving? No,” Mr. Steele said. “There’s an opportunity for us to do something different.” Other stores, like Joe’s Bike Shop in Maryland and Outdoor Research in Seattle, have since said they were closing shop this Friday, too.

“我们想让雇员在感恩节早早地离家去工作么？不，”斯蒂尔先生说。“我们有机会做些与众不同的事。”其他的商店，例如马里兰的Joe’s自行车行和西雅图的Outdoor Research，都宣称会在今年的黑色星期五闭门歇业。