TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A WalletHub study of the thousands of deals and stores in the U.S. found the best and worst places to shop for the holidays, especially with Black Friday on the way.

The survey examined about 5,000 deals and 21 major retailers in the U.S. to put together a list of the best places to buy, based on online and in-store deals, and stores’ biggest discounts compared to their competitors, and compared to previous years.

The WalletHub study focused on nine shopping categories:

  • Apparel and accessories
  • Computers and phones
  • Consumer electronics
  • Consumer packaged goods
  • Toys
  • Appliances
  • Furniture
  • Jewelry
  • Everything else (WalletHub called it “All other product categories”)

Across those nine categories, Macy’s, JCPenney and Belk were the most commonly selected for everything except furniture, where Office Depot and Office Max took the lead.

Discounts for a single category were most concentrated on apparel and accessories, according to WalletHub, while consumer packaged goods were the least discounted. However, the “all other product categories” section had the highest collective discounted rates, at 24.8 percent.

According to the study, the discount concentration means which categories has more discounts available. Items with the biggest price discounts on average belonged to the jewelry category.

From the retailers surveyed for the WalletHub study, Macy’s had the biggest discounts in computers and phones, consumer electronics and toys.

JCPenney had the biggest discounts in apparel and accessories, though Belk was just slightly behind, by 0.2 percent. JCPenney had discounts of 58.89 percent on apparel and JCPenney had 58.69 percent.

The lowest discounts across all of the retail brands surveyed were at Sam’s Club with a 2.62 percent discount on consumer packaged goods. Its discounts on consumer electronics weren’t much better, with 17.13 percent. The only other discounts in that general vicinity came from Newegg with a 16.87 percent discount for computers and phones, and Nordstrom, where consumer packaged goods were only discounted 8.01 percent.

For appliance discounts and sales, Belk was the big winner at 60.68 percent off, 80.22 percent off on jewelry and 68.81 percent off on all other product categories except furniture where discounts are not available.

Macy’s and JCPenney were fairly close on discounts, with only a few percentage points’ difference on appliances and jewelry, but JCPenney has no furniture discounts. Still, on all other categories, JCPenney beat out Macy’s with a 62.84 percent discount compared to Macy’s 57.81 percent.

Either way, from the stores surveyed by WalletHub, Macy’s, JCPenney and Belk had the most to offer when it came to savings, among the 21 retailers with their prices and deals surveyed.