Best 'Black Friday' deals in years

This is the year to buy that television: By far, the biggest discounts will be on televisions, analysts say. With the switch to digital television happening in February, many consumers need new televisions, and with consumer spending in the tank, retailers have plenty to sell. Prices should be down 30% from last year's specials, says Brad Olson, the founder of GottaDeal.com.

According to its leaked Black Friday ad, Sears will discount TVs heavily, selling a Sharp 46-inch 1080p LCD HDTV for $899 as an early-bird special, about $500 cheaper than a few weeks ago.

And de Grandpre says we may see some 50-inch plasma TVs go for as low as $699 as the economic news gets increasingly grim.

Or that car: With many automakers hanging on by a thread and desperate to move their 2008 vehicles, cars will also be one of the biggest bargains this holiday season for those who have the cash or good credit to buy one.

Toyota is already offering 0% financing on new car purchases (for qualifying buyers). And other automakers are offering thousands in cash-back rebates to get consumers off the fence. Needless to say, everyone's ready to deal on price.

General Motors' yearly Red Tag sale has been rolled out weeks ahead of schedule as the company scraps for survival.

"We are giving great deals on pretty much everything right now," says Jeff Fritz, the chief financial officer of Bill Alexander Auto Center, a Yuma, Ariz., dealer of Ford, Lincoln, Mercury and Toyota vehicles. "October was one of the worst months on record. We are sitting on a substantial amount of inventory we have to sell."

You can find a list of the 10 biggest cash-back deals here.

The gadgets must go

Demand has also fallen off sharply for consumer electronics of all sorts, and many deal watchers expect that deals on these gadgets will be what lures customers into stores.

What deals will be hot enough to get people to stand in line? De Grandpre says he expects to see some GPS devices going for as little as $50 to $100. (The cheapest are now about $80.)

• Talk back: Will you be shopping on 'Black Friday'? What's your strategy?

Likewise, Blu-ray DVD players will probably be marked down by nearly half, to $100, in a bid to get consumers to adopt this format.

And most of the deal experts say you should expect to see $299 laptops -- discounts of $100 or more -- at many of the big stores.

"Retailers are going to romance consumers until they are sick of it," says de Grandpre. "If you don't see a deal that sings out to you, then skip it. There will be another deal around the corner."

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