What is Best Buy Drops? Here’s why it’s one of our favorite money-saving hacks for high-profile items
5 min read
UPDATE: Mar. 12, 2024, 12:20 p.m. EDT This post has been updated with details on upcoming Drops between March 13 and March 19, including expansion devices for Mac, Xbox, and PlayStation.
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 exactly why Amazon’s invite-only Prime Day deals and Black Friday deals popped off, and why Walmart lets Walmart+ members get their hands on new groups of big shopping event deals hours before the general public can.
And it’s probably why Best Buy conveniently announced Best Buy Drops just ahead of the holiday shopping season. We’re pleasantly surprised that Drops turned out to not just be a holiday treat, though — it has solidified its spot as the middle tab of the Best Buy app, and we’ll certainly be taking advantage of this unique shopping hack as long as Best Buy will let us.
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Best Buy Drops is a shopping hack dedicated to giving shoppers a heads-up about upcoming high-profile items and deals in categories like gaming, cheap TVs, fan-favorite toys and merch, high-profile hair tools, kitchen gadgets, 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.
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 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 March 13 through March 19
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 11 a.m. ET on the specified day (usually a string of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in any given week), and inventory is typically fully claimed by 5 p.m. that day.
Dropping: March 13
Drops’ gaming theme continues, this time giving gamers on the go the treat their dedication has earned. The Backbone One snaps onto any iPhone (running iOS 15 or later) or an Android (running 10.0 or later) as long as it has a USB-C connector, and can also be used as a wired controller with a PC or tablet. Game options include anything on the App Store or Google Play as well as streamed options through cloud gaming services like Xbox Game Pass or Amazon Luna.
This Best Buy exclusive version of the Backbone One is a limited release Drop rather than a price-related Drop, so we expect it to be available at the regular Backbone One MSRP of $99.99. It’s still a steal, though, as that price includes a Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile custom sleeve and the opportunity to secure two 30-minute double XP tokens.
Dropping: March 15
Mac users who didn’t splurge on storage the first time should consider grabbing this 2TB external SSD by Crucial. Whether you frequently move large files around for work or merely want a backup in case your MacBook ever craps out, the X9 Pro is a reliable sidekick with read and write speeds up to 1,050MB per second — more than enough for the average workflow. Drop-proof durability up to 7.5 feet, an IP55 water and dust resistance rating, and a weight of less than 1.5 ounces make the X9 Pro way more portable than your typical clunky HHD.
This is the second time the 2TB X9 Pro has been featured as a Drop, and we’re expecting a $99.99 price tag over the usual $199.99.
Dropping: March 18
Xbox players can also expand their storage through this week’s Drops. WD’s Black C50 expansion card opens up 1TB of SSD for the Xbox Series X and S — a pretty crucial upgrade as new games continue to require more space than their older counterparts. This one doesn’t require any installation either, so you can plug it in and expand your game options whenever.
This particular WD expansion card hasn’t dropped below $124.98 according to Amazon price tracker camelcamelcamel, but Best Buy is known for beating record lows with Drops. $99.99 doesn’t seem like a stretch at all.
Dropping: March 19
You’re a PlayStation person, you say? Your chance to bump your console’s storage is coming, and it’s way more space than the previous two expansion devices are offering. Seagate’s Game Drive just for the PS5 and PS4 supplies a massive 4TB in extra room for all of the games you’ve collected over the years. This sleek white one, releasing exclusively as a Best Buy Drop, includes Rescue Data Recovery Services.