The New Year does provide sales, but not so much. The best I saw was 5%. Before Christmas I saw 10% to 15% off. Panels are on sale periodically throughout the year. Components like charge controllers, inverters, circuit breakers, wire, mounts, etc. aren't on sale so much throughout the year, but are best to be found on sale before Christmas. Renogy seems to do a good job offering sales. This probably isn't a big help for most people, but for those that are able to wait or happened to be ready at the time they are on sale, this should help. This is only one year's observation, so it may not hold true for other years. I suspect it generally will, though.
With Amazon I have a wish list. I look on it periodically to see the price drops that seem to happen arbitrarily for short periods of time. I've saved a few hundred dollars checking the list fairly frequently. I imagine one could get some good deals on solar doing this. Try to remember to go through Bob's links so he can get some benefit from the sale.
Searching "solar clearance" turned up some pretty good results. That's probably the best trick I've found during this little mini investigation.
