How to spot a real Black Friday deal in Canada (2026): fake 'was' prices, price trackers and return rules

One robot, three regular prices

The Roborock Q10 S5 was $229.99 at Amazon.ca, Best Buy Canada and Roborock's own Canadian store when I checked in October 2026, and all three listings were sold by Roborock itself. Amazon showed it down from $299.99. Roborock's store called $479.99 the regular price. Best Buy's listing promised a $270 saving, which puts its reference price at $499.99. Same robot, same seller, same price, three different discounts. The percentage tells you how the seller wants you to feel, not whether $229.99 is a good price.

Canadian law has a view on this. The Competition Bureau says it's illegal to advertise fake discounts by promoting a made-up regular price, and it explains the two tests it applies under subsections 74.01(2) and (3) of the Competition Act. Either more than half of the product's sales were at that price or higher within a reasonable period, usually a year, or the product was offered in good faith at that price for a substantial period, again usually within a year, before or after the sale. You can't see a store's sales data, so you can't run those tests. You can check what the price has actually been.

Look up the price history

For Amazon.ca, two free tools do the job. camelcamelcamel runs a Canadian site with price-history charts, email price alerts and a browser extension called the Camelizer. Keepa supports Amazon.ca too, with free price history and price-drop alerts in its extension. Both track Amazon only, so for Best Buy, Costco and Canadian Tire you're relying on RedFlagDeals and your own notes.

Here's why it matters. eufy's Omni C28 was $999.99 at Amazon.ca this week, shown as 29 percent off a $1,399.99 list price. camelcamelcamel's history shows $1,399.99 was its highest price, back in March. It averaged $887.72, fell to $649.99 in June and was $689.98 at the last scan in late September. That 29 percent off is a price increase. The Roborock Qrevo S5V (research review: Roborock Qrevo S5V review) is similar: camelcamelcamel logged a low of $549.99 on September 22, and this week the buy box was a third-party seller asking $1,099.95.

A real drop looks different. The same day, camelcamelcamel flagged a Shark Vertex Pro cordless stick at $349.99 against an average of $599.35. Pick the price you'd actually pay, set an alert, and let the tool tell you when it gets there.

Off Amazon, RedFlagDeals is the best Canadian record, because the comments under each deal are where people post the last sale price. In January an RFD thread called the Roborock Q7 L5 an all-time low at $169.99, against a $379.99 original price. This week Roborock's store has it at $149.99, still against a regular price of $379.99. Two sale prices nine months apart, both under half the regular price, tell you to compare against the last sale and ignore the strikethrough.

Every November the same complaint comes up across r/PersonalFinanceCanada, r/BuyCanadian and r/RobotVacuums: prices that creep up through the fall so the Black Friday cut looks bigger. Shoppers there say it isn't one brand or one store; it's routine.

Check who is actually selling it

Amazon.ca and Best Buy Canada both let outside sellers list beside their own stock, and that changes your rights. Best Buy had two Bambu Lab P2S Combos this week: one sold by Best Buy at $999.99 with no sale badge, and one from a marketplace seller at $999.00 with a "Save $90" badge. Best Buy's Low Price Guarantee only covers items sold and shipped by Best Buy, so the dollar you save on the marketplace listing costs you that protection, and you get the seller's return policy.

It changes your warranty too. Dreame's three-year Canadian warranty only applies to robots bought from Dreame's Canadian site or its official Amazon.ca store; anywhere else, you get the seller's policy. Roborock only covers products officially sold in Canada. On Amazon.ca, read the "sold by" line, not just "ships from Amazon". Our Canada-versus-US checklist covers model numbers and imports: canada us robot buying checklist.

Amazon Resale, refurbished and used

Amazon Warehouse is now called Amazon Resale on Amazon.ca. It sells returned, used and open-box items graded Like New, Very Good, Good or Acceptable. They're covered by Amazon's return policy, but Amazon's own FAQ says used products generally don't come with a manufacturer's warranty, and it won't exchange or replace them.

I bought my Shark PowerDetect stick this way: "Used - Mint" from Amazon Warehouse in September 2025 for $380.45 before tax, about $220 under the new price. A year on, it's the best stick vacuum I've owned (hands-on review: Shark PowerDetect Cordless Stick Vacuum (IP1251C) review). That saving was big enough to justify the risk. With any used listing, assume there's no manufacturer warranty unless it says otherwise, and test it on every floor straight away, before the return window closes.

Refurbished isn't automatically cheaper. Roborock's Canadian store listed a certified refurbished Saros Z70 (research review: Roborock Saros Z70 review) at $1,789.99 on the same page as a new one at $1,299.99, and refurbished Roborocks carry six months of warranty instead of a year. Ecovacs gives refurbished units three months. Amazon Renewed is a separate program with longer return windows: 90 days on select Renewed items and a year on Renewed Premium. More in our open-box guide: open box refurbished tech canada.

Price matching and return windows

Best Buy Canada's Low Price Guarantee is the most useful policy here, with big exclusions. If Best Buy cuts its own price within 30 days of your purchase, it refunds the difference, and a free My Best Buy account doubles the window to 60 days. It also matches other Canadian retailers, but not their Black Friday, Cyber Monday or Boxing Day prices, not marketplace sellers on Best Buy, Amazon.ca or eBay, and not refurbished or liquidation sellers. If you've already decided on a Best Buy-sold item and the price is fair in early November, buy it, keep the receipt and ask for the difference if Best Buy's own price drops.

Return windows are shorter than people assume. Amazon.ca gives 30 days from delivery on most items, and third-party sellers who ship their own stock handle their own returns. Best Buy Canada gives 30 days on most products. When I checked, neither return policy mentioned a 2026 holiday extension yet, and Best Buy's holiday-returns page redirected to its general gift page. Costco's satisfaction guarantee is broad; its 90-day electronics limit lists TVs, computers, major appliances and similar, and doesn't name vacuums. Roborock and Ecovacs take returns within 30 days on direct orders. A robot vacuum tester from RTINGS, posting Black Friday advice in r/RobotVacuums last year, put it simply: watch for defects, return if needed, and buy from Costco if you can.

3D printers: smaller cuts, earlier sales

Printer discounts are usually modest, and that's fine. Bambu Lab's Canadian store had the P2S Combo at $999 against $1,089 this week, about 8 percent off. When an owner in r/BambuLab charted this year's Anniversary Sale against list prices, the replies kept saying the same thing: the cuts were small. Bambu also starts early. It announced on r/BambuLab that last year's Black Friday sale was live on October 28.

I bought my own P2S Combo at Best Buy Canada (hands-on review: Bambu Lab P2S Combo (AMS 2 Pro) review). A local return path matters more on a printer this size than a small discount. Watch the bundle maths too: Best Buy's exclusive P2S Combo pack with eight spools of PLA was $1,299, shown as saving $378. Price the spools you'd actually use before you count that saving.

How our Deal Score judges a deal

Every deal on our deals page gets a Standpoint Deal Score out of 10. Up to 4 points come from the discount, measured only against a regular price we could verify. Up to 2 come from price history, meaning whether it's the lowest it has been. Up to 2 come from product evidence, either my own hands-on use or named outside testing. One point goes to a trusted first-party seller with normal returns and one to how long the deal lasts. Eight and up means buy it if you were going to anyway; under 5 means wait. Every score shows its reason, and we skip marketplace sellers with inflated regular prices. The current list is at /deals, and you can check our reasoning against the steps above.

Evidence matters because a deep cut on a weak product is still a weak product. The Ecovacs Deebot T90 Pro Omni was $699.99 at Ecovacs Canada this week and sits seventh in Vacuum Wars' October 2026 ranking. RTINGS's top robot, the Roborock Saros 10R (research review: Roborock Saros 10R review), is another where a sale would have real testing behind it. That beats a bigger percentage on a robot nobody has tested.