photo by: Nick Krug

In this file photo from Nov. 25, 2016, Baldwin City resident Cory Venable holds his 10-month-old son Jack as they browse the selection of TVs during Black Friday shopping at Best Buy, 2020 W. 31st Street.

The holiday season may mean a fun time with family and friends, but often it also means spending a lot of money for gifts, holiday food and other items.

With so much money coming out of our wallets, it’s a good time to brush up on how to avoid lesser known spending surprises and to find some cost-saving deals before Black Friday. Below is some information that me be useful to local shoppers:

In-store credit cards can be great, if you know what you’re doing

When consumers begin to rack up large bills at stores this holiday season, they may encounter a deal that could cut the cost immediately: an in-store credit card.

Many large retailers — such as J.C. Penney and Amazon, among others — offer credit cards that can be used only at their stores; those cards allow consumers to make purchases and pay later. The cards are often offered with a discount on the first purchase.

Chris Burk, supervisor for Housing & Credit Counseling in Lawrence, said those cards could be useful but consumers needed to know exactly what they’re getting into before signing up.

The reason is because many of those stores use a credit tactic called deferred interest, which means allowing the consumer to not pay any interest on the debt for a certain period. The snag comes in not paying off the entire line of credit before the deferred-interest period ends.

An example would be a company offering an in-store credit card with six months of deferred interest. If the consumer uses that credit card to buy $1,000 in goods, he or she would have six months to pay it all off interest free. But at the end of the six months, he or she may owe only a small amount of the original $1,000 and think that the interest will only be for that amount. Big mistake. If consumers miss paying off the entire cost within the deferred period, they will have to pay interest on the original credit line of $1,000.

Burk said this tactic often gets consumers to spend more money than they ever intended.

“If you don’t pay off the balance in full by the set timeline, all of that interest gets thrown onto your final balance,” he said. “Now the bill is twice as big as it was because you didn’t pay it off in time.”

WalletHub, a consumer website, found many large retailers use deferred interest and some are not that transparent about it either. Some companies consumers may want to keep an eye out for are J.C. Penney, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Apple, Menards, Sears, Best Buy and Amazon, among others.

Stores that do not use deferred interest include Target, Kohl’s, Dillard’s, Costco and many others, according to WalletHub.

Some stores also include membership fees with their credit cards, which also rack up unintended costs, Burk said.

“You think you’re getting these incentive bonuses using the cards, but you are paying a fee to use that card, so you have to be careful with that too,” he said.

Additionally, Burk said those who use credit cards will need to be extra vigilant during Black Friday and the holiday season, because that’s when most identity theft tends to occur. He said those using a credit card need to ensure they are buying from a business with a secure website.

Online shopping continues to rise

While Black Friday is mostly known for bargain hunters waiting in long lines and dashing through stores, many businesses have increased their online options.

Jessica Li, an associate professor of marketing and consumer behavior for the University of Kansas School of Business, citing a Reuters poll, said about 16 percent of Black Friday consumers will shop primarily or totally in stores, while 37 percent plan to shop primarily or totally online.

What may be new this year is how many businesses offer specific deals through mobile options.

“Mobile is especially going to be big this year with companies doing specific deals for people who have the mobile app,” she said. “That’s probably going to increase the number of people shopping using that channel.”

Li said businesses prefer for consumers to use apps because they can track more information and use that for behavioral targeting, a practice that uses a consumer’s online search history to customize advertisements for that shopper.

“There will be sales for consumers who haven’t downloaded the app yet and there might be sales that can only be viewed through the app,” she said.

Kristen Helling, a marketing lecturer KU’s business school, said many stores have had to make shopping easier both online and in person. While many large retailers, such as Walmart and Target, have made the push into digital sales, many small and local businesses have gotten in on it too, she said.

Many small businesses are finding they cannot survive without an online presence, she said, adding that retailers need have their products searchable and purchasable at all times of the day to make sure they are catching the widest swath of customers.

“The retailers that are capturing the most sales have adapted to and are putting their customers’ needs first,” she said.

In Lawrence, plenty of local businesses have incorporated online sales. Helling used Eccentricity, a downtown Lawrence women’s clothing store, as an example of a brick and mortar store that has worked to develop an online presence.

Although stores have embraced online shopping, the larger online retailers can still take away business, Li said. But this year might be a bit different.

“(Online shopping) still somewhat hurts brick and mortar stores, but because the economy is so strong this year, I don’t think it will be such a huge deal,” she said.

A chance to keep it local

Many local businesses will be offering deals this weekend as part of Small Business Saturday, a shopping event encouraging consumers to spend locally.

Sally Zogry, director of Downtown Lawrence Inc., said buying local helps the community’s economy by keeping money here.

“When you support a local business, you support a local business owner who has a family, so you’re supporting that family,” she said. “Then they have employees, so you’re supporting those employees and their families, who then go out and spend money in the community also.

“It’s a cycle that’s really important,” she added.

Zogry said many downtown Lawrence businesses would be offering shopping deals Saturday. A list of deals will be posted on the Downtown Lawrence Inc. website and a Facebook page for the event.