Create a killer Black Friday plan to get all the best deals – CNET

You know the old saying: People don’t plan to fail on Black Friday, they fail to plan for Black Friday.

Indeed, if you want to win the day, to score every killer deal from every store, you need to do a little planning. Not too long ago, that meant spreading out all the ads on Thanksgiving (because that’s when they came out, of course), carefully comparing prices and locations, circling items you wanted, then mapping your route between stores.

That’s no longer necessary. By using the free app Flipp, which aggregates store flyers — including those for Black Friday — you can quickly and easily craft an effective shopping plan.

It works like this: Run the app, then agree to let it access your location so it can find flyers from nearby stores. Next, choose your “favorite” stores from the list. (This won’t impact your ability to see Black Friday circulars; it’s for future circulars, coupon-clipping and so on.)

Once initial setup is complete, tap the Browse option in the bottom menu, then find and tap Black Friday up top. Choose any store flyer, then swipe left or right to peruse the pages. When you see something you might like to buy, tap it. Presto! Flipp circles the item in digital ink and adds it to your shopping list.

You can swipe up to advance to the next Black Friday circular or down to go back to the previous one.

When you’re all done browsing and tapping, choose Shopping List and then tap Clippings. Now you can see everything at a glance: each store and each item on your list.

The whole process is incredibly easy, and the resulting list is incredibly handy. It’s also a great way to compare prices on similar items so you don’t have to remember from one ad to another. (Shopping for a DJI Spark ($499.00 at Dell Home), for example? Add it wherever you see it, then you can look and see which store has the best price.)

The only thing I don’t understand is why Flipp seems to be missing a few key Black Friday ads, like the ones from Best Buy and Home Depot.

Thus, if you’ve found another solution for browsing Black Friday ads and quickly building a shopping list from them, by all means share it in the comments!

Black Friday deals: See every Black Friday 2017 deal we’ve found so far.

Holiday Gift Guide: CNET’s full gift guide, including dozens of products priced under $25, $50 and $100.