Looking for the best deals before your next trip to Kohl’s? We’ve identified some of the best product categories that you can find on sale at Kohl’s as well as some of the worst that you will want to avoid. These picks are based on average discounts as well as the potential for additional coupons used in the transaction.

Five Best:

1. Small Kitchen Appliances (Magic Bullet, Waffle Makers, Keurig)

More focused with online sales rather than in-store savings, this is the product category we on sale most often on Ben’s. Kohl’s typically offers greater discounts than other retailers.

Look to stack coupons on these items and add bonus savings with a rebate (Example: 20% off any order coupon + $10 off $30 or more Home coupon + a $20 rebate.)

2. Towels, Bedding, Rugs, Linens, General Home Decor

Look for the best sales on Kohl’s store brand products, then combine those sales with stacked coupons with dollar-off codes on the Home category.

Consider purchasing multiple items to reach the dollar-off coupon minimums. (Example, a recent deal offered 16 of Kohl’s “Big One” bath towels for $36 using stacking coupons; just over $2 per towel.)

3. Outdoor Kids’ Items (Mini-Pools, Inflatable Water Parks)

Similar to small kitchen appliances, these deals are more plentiful online rather than in-store. Look for the bonus addition of Kohl’s Cash on the higher-priced items, ideal for your next trip to Kohl’s.

4. Adult Apparel (Logo t-shirts, Work Clothes)

While we recommend avoiding adult apparel at regular retail prices, the savings in the clearance section when combined with coupons is tremendous.

Specifically, look for the best deals on men’s graphic t-shirts, Dockers slacks and Big & Tall sizes for men as well as women’s underwear / lingerie.

5. Apparel Accessories (Purses, Sterling Jewelry, Gloves)

As long as you aren’t a brand snob, Kohl’s offers excellent prices on quality purses and gloves (often made from real leather). You are also going to find more aggressive sales on sterling silver jewelry when compared to competitors like Macy’s or JC Penney.

Five Worst:

1. Kid’s Toys / Apparel

Unfortunately, Kohl’s is one of the worst retailers to find a significant discount on toys. Retail prices are inflated on toys; thus coupons don’t have much of an impact. Look to Target and Walmart for better deals in-store as well as Amazon for online deals.

The same advice applies to children’s apparel as the base MSRP starts too high for solid sales. For example, Kohl’s sell Carter’s brand of baby and toddler clothing. You are better off going directly to Carter’s for significantly cheaper prices during sale periods.

2. Electronics (TVs and Small Electronics)

Likely an attempt to become more relevant around the Black Friday shopping period, Kohl’s does carry some electronics. Unfortunately, the quality of the off-brand TV models is poor and Kohl’s doesn’t often allow coupons on other small electronics. Prices are usually better at any number of electronic retailers such as Best Buy and Amazon.

3. Shoes

While Kohl’s occasionally offers decent sale prices on lower-end Nike sneakers, these cheaper models are usually poorer quality than models that can be found in a specialized shoe store.

In addition, other brands that Kohl’s carries are lacking in quality. You are typically better off shopping at retailers like Nordstrom Rack and 6pm.

4. Furniture

Retail prices on Kohl’s furniture offerings are usually too high for coupons to have a significant impact on dropping the cost for the consumer. In addition, shipping charges are exorbitant on oversized items, pushing the price tag up even more. Alternatively, look to retailers like Target, IKEA and Walmart for better prices on furniture that’s of similar quality.

5. Wrapping paper, Greeting Cards, Gift Bags

In general, it’s never a good idea to purchase these items at retailers like Kohl’s. You will be paying a premium for these items simply due to the convenience. As long as you have time, hit up a dollar store for significantly better prices.

Check out our latest Deals from Kohl’s

Five Best & Five Worst Things to Buy at Kohl’s

Stumped on what to get that person on your list who seems to already have it all? Looking for something a little less generic and a little more special? Here are some unique gift ideas that are sure to stand out from the rest.

Buy this Gift for Someone Who is Really Into Modern Decoration

Nanoleaf is a company that makes light panels which can be configured into any design as well as any of 16 million color options. No drilling is required (ideal for apartment dwellers) and you can even enable touch options to trigger specific smart home features via HomeKit.

• MSRP: $199 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: $159

Check Price on Amazon

Buy This Gift for Someone Who Really Loves Their Dog

While the Human DNA fad is still going strong, the Puppy DNA fad has really just started to warm up. The Embark Dog DNA Test Kit tests for more than 250 dog breeds as well as a variety of diseases. Creating a family tree on the site, Embark will show your dog’s family tree all the way back to great-grandparents.

• MSRP: $199 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: $140

Check Price on Amazon

Buy This Gift for Someone Who Hates Walking

While the hoverboard fad has cooled off somewhat, the Segway has gotten smaller and more affordable over time. The Segway miniLITE is a self balancing personal transporter that’s easier to balance on and provides a smoother ride than other transporters. It pulls 4.5 star out of 5 star reviews on Amazon.

• MSRP: $399 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: $200

Check Price on Amazon

Buy This Gift for Someone Who’s a Germaphobe

Featured on Shark Tank a few seasons ago, this device uses UV light to destroy all the microscopic germs living on your smartphone. In addition to that, the PhoneSoap 3 UV sanitizer also charges your phone, ideal for a nightstand. Pop your phone in at night and you will have a fully charged, germ free phone in the morning.

• MSRP: $60 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: $40

Check Price on Amazon

Buy This Gift for Someone Who Lives on the Ski Slopes

Do you know someone that races up the mountain every weekend to ski or snowboard? They clearly need the Beardski Prospector Ski Mask, a surprisingly well made, waterproof ski mask that offers a thermal fleece neck as well as vented neoprene for the mouth and chin. Attaining a 4.5 out of 5 star rating on Amazon, it gets high marks for comfort and warmth.

• MSRP: $17 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: N/A

Check Price on Amazon

Buy This Gift for Someone that Loves DIY Projects

Combining the moulding flexibility of play-dough and the strength of silicone rubber, the Sugru Hardware Sealer is a product that can be formed by hand and allowed to set in any form overnight. It also attaches to almost anything, making it ideal for any DIY project.

• MSRP: $22 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: n/a

Check Price on Amazon

Buy This Gift for the Serious Carnivore

The BBQ Branding Iron is a unique gift option for the meat-loving person who hates things like “vegan bacon” as much as Ron Swanson. The branding iron set comes with every letter of the alphabet so that grillers can sear everyone’s names onto their respective pieces of meat (or just the letters L-A-M-E onto any veggie burger they’re forced to cook).

• MSRP: $17 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: N/A

Check Amazon for BBQ Branding Iron

Buy This Gift for a Board Game Fanatic

Ideal for a dedicated game room or perhaps even a kid’s room (assuming they love word jumbles), the Giant Wall Scrabble board is a massive version of the game that we all grew up with. The large wood tiles are held to the board with magnets. There’s also a chalkboard on the right side of the game board to keep score.

MSRP: $1,200 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: N/A

Check Pottery Barn for Wall Scrabble

Buy This Gift for the Beer Connoisseur

Anyone who likes drinking beer will probably already have a collection of pint glasses, but most of them probably don’t have a set of pint glasses with their name on them. The Set of 4 Personalized Pub Glasses from Personal Creations can be customized with the name, state, and date of establishment of your friend or family member’s home bar or basement brewery. Personal Creations also has a bunch of other personalized craft beer/pub gifts; pair any of them with a nice six-pack or growler and you’ve got a great, one-of-a-kind gift.

MSRP: $50 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: N/A

Check Red Envelope for Pub Glasses

Buy This Gift for the Totally Unique Hipster

Toms Shoes are already about as hip as you can get. But there’s one way to give them even more hipster cred: making sure no one else will ever have the exact same pair. You can get custom Toms on Etsy for around $100 (about twice the cost of normal Toms). You can get pretty much anything you can think of — from sports teams, to classic art pieces, to Disney characters, to movies, and everything in between — hand-painted on your Toms.

MSRP: N/A | Lowest Price on Ben’s: N/A

Check Etsy for Custom Toms

Buy This Gift for the Book-Loving Child (or Child at Heart)

Books are always a great gift idea for kids, but let’s be honest — they just aren’t all that exciting to open up on Christmas morning. But the collection of pop-up books from Matthew Reinhart can hardly be called books. They are so cool, so unlike any other book you’ve ever seen before, that kids might just get more excited about them than the toys they get.

Titles include Transformers, Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs, DC Superheroes, The Chronicles or Narnia, The Jungle Book, and Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy (most are currently around $25 on Amazon). I own the Star Wars and Dinosaur books and they are ridiculously awesome and entertaining.

MSRP: $30 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: N/A

Check Amazon for Matthew Reinhart Pop-Up Books

Buy This Gift for the Person Who Doesn’t Need More Stuff

Sometimes, the best gift you can give someone is something that’s not easily wrapped in a box: an experience; a memory. For the person who already has all the “stuff” they want or need, a gift certificate for a night of fun can be a great, unique option. For the creative type, how about one of those “wine and canvas” places (where you learn how to create a painting while getting tipsy on wine)? For the foodie, try cooking classes. Or go crazy and get them skydiving lessons. Groupon has tons of these types of activities and more (check their Occasions section for the best holiday options).

MSRP: N/A | Lowest Price on Ben’s: N/A

Check Groupon for Activity Gift Cards

12 Really Unique Gifts for People Who are Tough to Please

Have you ever wanted to be Michael Jordan, making millions, winning NBA titles, and having your own shoes? Well, the first two almost certainly aren’t going to happen, unless you can grow a foot overnight or invent Flubber. But with the new Adidas 3D printed shoes, you can feel like Jordan, at least when you’re wearing your personalized shoes. (And, yes, we know Jordan is a Nike athlete; just go with the general idea for now.)

The Futurecraft 4D will be made from a regularly manufactured Adidas shoe, but the midsole will be inserted later. A California startup company called Carbon — funded in part by Google and GE — uses a 3D printing process called Continuous Liquid Interface Production to create the midsoles for the shoes.

The initial plan is to allow individuals to order shoes that would be molded to fit their foot shape or foot strike when walking or running. Or a company could order a limited edition of a particular shoe.

Adidas will start creating and selling the shoe over the last half of 2017, with plans for about 5,000 shoes this year. That number will climb to 100,000 shoes in 2018.

Adidas already allows customers to personalize their shoes by ordering online with custom colors. And other shoe companies have unveiled 3D printed shoes as prototypes.

But the Adidas and Carbon collaboration aims to speed up the process of printing the shoes, while maintaining the quality. Adidas reported the first set of shoes required about 90 minutes to print a single midsole. But the hope is to cut the amount of time required to around 20 minutes.

This process would replace the idea of making small batches of shoes using plastic injection technology. This method required about 10,000 shoes to be economical, so the 3D printing method for midsoles would allow for smaller batches.

Not surprisingly, the initial high cost of these shoes is the biggest drawback. (Who would’ve guessed that individually customized shoes would be expensive?)

Adidas and Carbon are working on ways to bring the shoes’ cost down, but when the Futurecraft 4D shoes initially appear, Adidas says they will have a premium cost. To keep up with the latest information regarding Adidas’ Futurecraft 4D shoes, check with the Adidas Futurecraft web page.

Cool Gear: Adidas 3D Printed Shoes Are Made to Order

Labor Day weekend is already upon us and the early sales have started to hit retailers this week in preparation of the holiday. While you can find plenty of products on sale, not everything you will see is on sale for the best price. Here are our five picks for product categories that you should avoid this holiday weekend. This list was developed by Ben’s Bargains Editor-in-Chief Kristin Cook as well as other deal expert editors on Ben’s.

Don’t Buy Gas Grills

While you will see solid sales on gas grills on Labor Day (usually 25% to 50% off), this holiday marks the start of aggressive discounts on gas grills as we move into the off-season. Prices will continue to drop into October and November. Be aware that inventory will also become more limited, however the potential savings by waiting could be an additional 25% off that Labor Day price.

What to buy instead? Patio furniture / Outdoor living gear / Lawnmowers

Labor Day is generally the big push to get rid of outdoor furniture, above-ground temporary pools, lawnmowers and any other outdoor items. Big items like patio furniture take up more inventory space than gas grills, thus there’s greater urgency to use Labor Day as a sales push to make space for holiday items. Look for discounts up to 75% off regular prices.

Don’t Buy Fall Apparel

Labor Day weekend is typically when retailers start heavily advertising cool-weather apparel. However, Fall apparel won’t hit the best sales until the Winter apparel lines start pushing into stores. Don’t be fooled by small discounts (10% to 30%) during Labor Day when you will start to see 50% discounts and higher as we move into November.

What to buy instead? Summer Apparel / Footwear

Retailers will discount summer items as much as 80% off since they need the room for cool-weather clothing. Look for solid summer apparel sales at REI, American Eagle, Nordstrom, 6pm, Gap, Old Navy & Banana Republic. This is also a great holiday to purchase swimwear, heavily discounted as you likely won’t be wearing it until late Spring 2016.

Don’t Buy Televisions / General Electronics

While you will definitely see Labor Day sales on televisions likely related to the start of football season, the most significant discounts won’t actually happen until the start of November through Black Friday / Cyber Monday as well as sporadically during December. Outside of televisions, this includes home theater systems, digital cameras, smartphones, tablets, GPS navigators and more.

What to buy instead? Back-to-School Electronics

The back-to-school shopping push unofficially comes to a close around Labor Day. This means retailers will be pushing out anything marketed as a back-to-school item more aggressively. Outside of traditional school supplies (which are also marked down), that includes inexpensive laptops, calculators, headphones, Bluetooth speakers and backpacks with laptop slots.

Don’t Buy Fun Toys for the Kids

Similar to general electronics, toy sales are fairly dismal during Labor Day. However, sales on toys for the holiday shopping season have been starting earlier and earlier, generally around late October. Stores like Toys R Us will start heavily promoting sales starting late October throughout mid-December. Other retailers that will promote sales during that time frame include Amazon, Walmart and Target.

What to buy instead? Fun “Toys” for Adults; Mattresses, Cars and Wine

• During 2014, Labor Day mattress sales were better than any other time of the year. Look to Sears for an extremely aggressive sale of 50% to 60% off select models. Macy’s, Sleepy’s and smaller mattress retailers will also offer similar discounts.
• Regarding cars, dealerships are making room for 2016 models, 2015 models are being discounted a bit. Look for discounts around 10% on Labor Day with the potential for increasing discounts (20% and up) as we move into late September / early October. Of course, inventory will also dwindle.
• If you are a wine drinker, many wineries are starting to push out older stock in favor of new vintages that will come from the ongoing harvest season. This results in heavier discounts (which vary significantly by winery) on current year wine.

Don’t Buy Thanksgiving / Christmas Airfare

While you will see holiday travel deal promotions on Labor Day weekend, the best time to book your holiday travel for Thanksgiving and Christmas is usually early October (between Oct 5^th and 15^th). Ticket prices are roughly 5% to 10% lower during that time period, then will shoot back up after mid-October.

What to buy instead? Last-minute summer destinations

Leading up to Labor Day as well as the holiday itself, it’s a great time to snag a deal on a trip to a warm destination. As summer comes to a close, you will see travel deals that offer 30% to 50% off Labor Day getaways as well as discounts that take specific dollar amounts off your hotel stay.

Five Things Not to Buy on Labor Day (and what to buy instead!)