Black Friday - How Customers Are Fooled!
One weekend, hundreds of discounts, and 140 million Americans who are expected to purchase products during Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2022.[1] Part of this game are also retailers which are competing to provide the best deals. Every company wants to gain as much as possible from the estimated 51 billion dollars that customers are ready to spend just in the US.[2] It almost sounds like a perfect scenario: Retailers can launch massive clearance offers to get rid of excess stock, while consumers can purchase their desired items at the lowest prices possible. This impression, however, is deceptive!
Disadvantages of Shopping on Black Friday
Artifically-Made Discounts
Against common expectations, Black Friday is usually not the cheapest time to purchase desired items. In fact, a recent analysis proves that 98% of the offers were already cheaper at different point in times.[3] Reena Sewraz, who evaluated the research, even stated that “finding a good deal on Black Friday was like looking for a needle in a haystack.” Many retailers also fool their customers by raising their prices just before Black Friday so that they can offer seemingly larger discounts on Black Friday. This practice, however, should really be reconsidered by companies as it increases the consumer’s distrust in the company’s goodwill.
Increased Number of Scams
A statistic by Lloyds Bank reveals that scams also raise by a third during the weekend of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In 2021, a shocking amount of around 20 million dollars was lost to scams on this festive period according to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB).[4] Fraudsters often used social media to either just post scam offers or to send them straight into their victims’ inboxes. Therefore, Lloyds Bank recommends consumers to always search themselves for deals and to pay special attention when seeing offers on social media. In general, consumers should be very cautious with suspicious links, unfamiliar websites, billing scams and verification code scams.
Environmental Damage
Critics also stress that large discounts are leading to overconsumption, impulsive buying, and finally to environmental damage. Indeed, “around 80% of items bought on Black Friday are thrown away after a few uses, some without being used at all”.[5] Consequently, a lot of waste is created by the discarded items themselves and additionally, by their packaging. On this weekend, many retailers also promise free two-day shipping at the expense of the environment: “When shipments are sent out with shorter notice, the shipping center has less time to pack trucks to their full capacity, with the result that more trips have to be made.” Not only the fast deliveries but also the return of several items increase the greenhouse gas emissions significantly. In total, around 30 million items bought on Black Friday are returned every year, and thus contribute to the 429,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions that are released just in the UK on Black Friday alone. In other words, more than 2.1 million people would need to fly from London to Frankfort on a single day to produce the equal amount of greenhouse gas emissions.[6] With the allure of cheap products, companies fuel overconsumption, but the consumers cannot deny their responsibility either. While companies should reconsider to offer two-day deliveries, consumers should begin to purchase items more consciously.
Increased Violence
Black Friday cannot only be associated with large discounts, scams, and overconsumption, but also with increased violence. Since 2006, 17 deaths and 125 injuries were unfortunately directly tied to Black Friday.[7] The first reported death was in 2008 when a huge crowd of consumers wanted to get inside Walmart and trampled an employee to death.[8]These are very extreme cases, but it shows once again that this big sale weekend triggers behavior in people reminiscent of predators fighting for the biggest prey.
Advantages of Black Friday
Black Friday seems to predominantly cause harm to our society and environment. There are, however, also some benefits for customers and companies.
Even though most products are not the cheapest on Black Friday, consumers have at no other point in time such a wide variety of offers available. For many people, it is also a great chance to buy Christmas gifts for family members or friends at relatively lucrative prices. The origin of the expression “Black Friday” also points out that companies can highly profit from Black Friday: Black refers to “the practice of recording profits in black ink and losses in red ink. “ [9] So, retailers plan to sell on this particular day enough to be “in the black” (profit area) for the remaining months of the year. In fact, retailers generate their highest profits in the period between Black Friday and Christmas. [10]
Who Profits the Most from Black Friday?
Although all firms seem to highly benefit from Black Friday, one company generates profits disproportionate to those of its competitors: AMAZON. With a share of 24.2 percent of all online sales on Black Friday in 2021, Amazon’s share has more than three times the size of their biggest competitor, Best Buy (7%). [11] In 2021, Americans spent 8.9 billion dollars just on items from Amazon on Black Friday. [12] These numbers show that big retailers profit enormously from Black Friday, whereas smaller and local businesses have a hard time competing with the discounts offered by global players. Thus, customers should also consider buying from smaller, and local businesses.
Anti Black Friday Campaigns
Due to the environmental damage caused by Black Friday, some companies even started to boycott the Black Friday. For instance, Patagonia donates 100 percent of its sales from the Black Friday weekend to projects for the environment. The company even encourages people to buy less by offering repair service for their items. Freitag, a firm that sells bags, closes all online stores during this weekend. They decided to turn all their physical stores into swap stores for the weekend so that people cannot buy any new products. Instead, customers can exchange their bags with other people. Not only some companies, but also many other people have started to see Black Friday more critically. Therefore, Green Friday was brought to life, a movement that encourages people to not participate in the prey for deals but to rather pursue something worthwhile like spending time with loved ones.
Contribute to a Shift in Society Towards Sustainability
If you want to purchase items more consciously in the future, you should consider downloading ENJO, a newly established fashion app with the goal to completely revolutionize the fashion industry. The fashion app, ENJO, can be understood as a social media app for fashion where everyone can be a Stylefluencer as long as you post outfits with tags. Thanks to an algorithm, you will be able to see Stylefluencers wearing the fashion you like with the same body type as you. The best part about it? In the near future, you will be able to see sustainability scales for all the different outfits.
Annotated Bibliography:
[1] https://www.finder.com/black-friday-statistics
[2] https://www.finder.com/black-friday-statistics
[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63702559
[4] https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/black-friday-warning-bargain-hunters-28483044
[5] https://www.goodenergy.co.uk/black-friday/
[6] https://www.clevel.co.uk/flight-carbon-calculator/
[7] https://blackfridaydeathcount.com
[8] https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/business/29walmart.html
[9] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blackfriday.asp
[10] https://toppandigital.com/us/blog-usa/black-friday-actually-profitable-retailers/