UPDATE: Oct. 26, 2023, 2:00 p.m. EDT The new Best Buy Drops tab on the Best Buy app gives you a head’s up about upcoming new product drops, limited edition releases, and major discounts on high-profile items ahead of the holidays. This post has been updated to track the products dropping in the coming week.
When it comes to shopping, a scarcity mindset is just as convincing as that one friend who always enables you to buy something you don’t need. It’s why there’s often a timer breathing down your neck from the corner of the screen during a sitewide sale. It’s why Amazon’s invite-only Prime Day deals popped off (and why they’ll likely be back for Black Friday). It’s probably why Best Buy announced Best Buy Drops right before we hit full-blown holiday shopping season — and we’re totally falling for it.
Best Buy unveils its Black Friday plans: Early access to deals starts right before Halloween
Best Buy Drops is a new shopping hack dedicated to giving shoppers a heads-up about upcoming high-profile items and deals in categories like gaming, smartwatches, toys, and more dropping at Best Buy in the next week. As long as you have the Best Buy mobile app, you can preview what’s coming on what day so that you’re ready to click “add to cart” when the item or deal goes live. This kind of preparedness is the name of the game with Drops, as some items are so popular that it’s only a matter of minutes (or seconds) before they sell out.
If a drop is currently live while you’re on the app, a status bar showing the percentage of inventory that has been claimed can give an idea of how fast you need to act. Once inventory for a certain drop is gone, it’s gone.
Drops can include a huge price slash on a popular item or availability of product that wasn’t up for grabs before.
Credit: Screenshot / Mashable
The Drops tab also keeps a list of past drops, which have included a limited-edition PlayStation 5 Marvel’s Spider-Man bundle, Pokémon Squishmallows, a super cheap 50-inch QLED TV, and the Apple Watch Ultra 2. Even if you missed these, you at least have an idea of what similar items could pop up in the coming weeks. To look ahead, check the upcoming tab.
For extra cushion, you can opt-in to Drop Alerts for an extra reminder right before the drop of a product you care about goes live. Joining My Best Buy Plus or My Best Buy Total will unlock even better discounts on drops than what the general public is getting.
What’s dropping at Best Buy Oct. 26 through Nov. 2
Best Buy is only revealing the names of the upcoming products — not their actual drop prices — in the drop preview tab, so any prices listed below are the current price of the said product as it is on Best Buy’s site pre-drop. Drops go live around 10 a.m. on the specified day, and inventory is typically fully claimed by 5 p.m. that day.
Dropped: Oct. 26
It’s been almost 10 years since the youth first declared electric self-balancing scooters — AKA hoverboards — the coolest thing ever, and they’re still a popular gift item this year. The one participating in a Best Buy Drop is the Hover-1 Blast: one of Hover-1’s safer and more affordable options. This sleek black-with-blue-headlights design can reach seven miles per hour and hold riders up to 160 pounds.
Dropping: Nov. 1
At $999.99 at full price, MSI’s Codex R desktop is already on the affordable side for a prebuilt PC with components like NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 graphics, an Intel Core i5 CPU,n and 1TB of storage, plus an included mouse and RGB mechanical keyboard. With the expected few hundred dollars this Drop could shave off, you’ll probably have enough to cover a few extra gaming accessories.
Dropping: Nov. 2
Speaking of gaming accessories, the drop following the gaming PC is a wireless mini mechanical keyboard. The Corsair K70 Pro Mini features a compact 60 percent layout, skipping buttons like a function row and arrow keys. It doesn’t skip the RGB backlight, however, and still offers a decent amount of customization options and mouse shortcuts for the conservative size.
The white K70 Pro Mini is already on sale for $10 off at Best Buy, so you can expect the drop price to be notably lower than $169.99.
