Patio deals, timed against the damn seasons

This is the most brutally seasonal category on Amazon and it isn't close. Patio furniture and outdoor equipment reaches peak pricing in spring, then declines sharply from late summer as retailers clear inventory before winter. The gap between April and September on the same conversation set is enormous. Which means a spring discount and an autumn discount are not remotely the same event, even at the same percentage, and treating them alike is how deal sites waste your damn time.

How we score patio and garden

We weight seasonality heavily here, so a late-summer clearance discount scores lower than an equivalent reduction in peak spring season. End-of-season clearance is expected, not exceptional, and everything gets marked down at once. What earns a high score is a real drop in March, April or May, when nobody needs to discount and somebody does anyway. Grills and powered garden equipment are scored with product lifecycle in mind, as model years turn over annually and outgoing models decline predictably — which makes an outgoing grill in September a fine buy and a damn unremarkable score.

How the Damn Good Score works →