I am a little confused about the posts.
I want to clarify that I did not claim that ALL Black Friday, Cyber Monday Deals are not good deals. Many are. I bought some myself.
My comments were not about QVC specifically, they were about retailers in general. But I stand by my statement that QVC does cut off discounts on SOME NOT ALL items when they have free S&H. I know this because I have seen it on my saved items. If you haven't seen that, then good for you if you got a deal. It is never on ALL items, only SOME items.
For QVC, they bring in many items that are new with no price history, and the discount they claim is off what you would have paid elsewhere. When I see the crossed off prices on my screen, I don't know what that means. they don't even call them the regular qvc price, which is what they used to do. QVC used to include the TSV and other prices in their emails. They only do it rarely now, because they don't want us to compare prices with those from the past or the future, which I used to do. I would save the emails on things that interested me, and go back and compare prices at other times. The differences between a sale and a next day price at qvc are often less than $5. Sale prices are now lower or higher.
The only Black Friday item I was interested in at QVC is still in my saved items, at the same price. It is now a Cyber Sale price. It is a good deal, which I know because it is an item that I can find in many other places, so I know the regular price. It is on sale elsewhere as well, for the same as QVC or a lower price. Hoping the price goes down more.
A Black Friday item I bought on Amazon at a good sale price (I use the price cheking tools too, but know Amazon is now an affiliate of that company), went up only by $1. But several did go back up higher, so those sales were real.
According to the reports I saw and mentioned in the op, they state that about 1/3 of items are not real sales, not that ALL items are not real sales.
Many of you got good deals, as I did.