When to buy: the discount calendar

The fixed dates

In Italy the discount calendar turns around a handful of moments:

• Winter sales: early January to late February, with the deepest cuts in the final weeks.
• Summer sales: early July to late August, same dynamic.
• Black Friday: last Friday of November, now stretched across the whole week and often the whole month.
• Cyber Monday: the following Monday, weighted towards electronics and digital services.
• Prime Day and similar: mid-year, with a knock-on effect as other shops answer with their own promotions.

Clothing

The rule of the trade is that stock must clear before the next season arrives. The best moment for a winter coat is February; for a swimsuit, late August. Buying out of season means a thinner choice of sizes, but prices you will rarely see again.

Electronics

Here the deciding factor is not the season but the product cycle. When a new generation launches, the previous one drops 20-30% within weeks. Phone and laptop announcements cluster between September and October; televisions fall early in the year, ahead of the big sporting events.

Travel

This works the opposite way to everything else: prices rise as the date approaches. For flights the good window is usually two to four months before departure. Last-minute deals exist but mostly cover packages and hotels with unsold rooms, not flights.

When waiting is not worth it

If you need something now, the maths changes: postponing a broken appliance until Black Friday rarely pays off. And watch for prices inflated in the days before a sales event, a practice that does happen: it is worth checking how the price moved over the preceding weeks, not just the headline percentage.