Best Buy Canada Open Box & Clearance Guide

Best Buy Canada's Open Box listings are returned, displayed, or lightly used units sold at a discount off the current regular price, usually with a shorter or different warranty than a new unit. The discount is real, but it's calculated against Best Buy's current listed price at the moment the Open Box unit goes up for sale, not against the lowest price that item has ever sold for.

That distinction matters more than it sounds like it should. If the regular price crept up before the Open Box discount was applied, a "25% off" Open Box tag can still land above what the item sold for new during an earlier sale.

Separate from Open Box, Best Buy Canada also clears out new, unopened stock through its regular clearance program: discontinued models, seasonal overstock, and slow sellers marked down while still sealed. These clearance prices are worth comparing against Open Box prices on the same model before assuming Open Box is automatically the better deal; sometimes a clearance unit, brand new, ends up cheaper.

• Check the price history first. A chart of what the regular (non-Open Box) listing has cost over recent weeks tells you the real baseline an Open Box discount should be measured against.
• Compare Open Box against current clearance, not just current regular price. If a new clearance unit of the same model is cheaper, Open Box isn't the deal it looks like.
• Watch for repeat markdowns.Clearance items that don't sell get marked down again, and a price-drop alert catches that automatically instead of requiring you to keep checking.

ShelfAware tracks live prices, price history, and clearance markdowns for Best Buy Canada, free, alongside 11 other Canadian retailers. Browse today's Best Buy clearance deals or search a product to see its price history before deciding between Open Box and clearance.