Black Friday shopping as we’ve known it likely won’t exist much longer.
Black Friday is the star of the Christmas creep, the holiday shopping season leading
up to Christmas that, as many angry Halloween fans – myself included – will note, starts
as early as August.
Like many capitalist traditions, Black Friday originated in the United States, it’s the
term used to describe the day after Thanksgiving when shoppers can expect steep discounts.
In the 1960s the term Black Friday was first used in Philadelphia referring to the congested
traffic from shoppers in the streets, but today it’s more commonly explained as the
day retailers go from being “in the red” to “in the black” aka the day they turn
a profit.
Black Friday has been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005 and it’s also
been at the center of several controversies.
Namely around sensationalized stories of shoppers turning violent due to competition for scarce
heavily discounted items and more recently the debate around workers’ rights as stores
have begun opening earlier and earlier to the point where many stores open for Black
Friday in the afternoon of Thanksgiving Day.
But neither of these are the reason Black Friday is unlikely to remain the busiest shopping
day of the year for much longer.
In the heyday of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving marked the unofficial start to
the holiday shopping season.
But the so-called Christmas creep has shifted to start earlier and earlier every year.
In fact, retailers like KMART have been known to air Christmas-themed ads in early September.
But the death of Black Friday isn’t all about Christmas shopping.
Retailers largely have themselves to blame for killing Black Friday.
They have conditioned us, the consumers, to expect sales nearly year-round.
Consumers used to wait all year to buy big ticket items like televisions and computers
until Black Friday, because they knew they would get incredible deals.
It’s what drives people to camp outside of stores overnight to be the first in line
when doors open for Black Friday.
But this year just 35 percent of people planning to shop Thanksgiving week say they’ll be
doing so on Black Friday, compared to 51 percent last year and 59 percent in 2015.
That’s a huge drop.
People know that if they miss out on a sale that day, it’s no big deal, there will be
another sale soon.
In fact with websites like slickdeals.com which are communities of people posting about
the best deals for various items and Chrome extensions like Honey, which tell you when
something you’re buying online has a coupon available or even when it may be cheaper somewhere
else – you can be sure that you can always find a great deal on almost anything you’re
looking to buy.
And alas, these are not sponsors.
On top of that, retailers have big sales for every holiday you can think of, even inappropriate
ones like Memorial Day, a day that’s supposed to be about honoring and remembering those
who died serving in the armed forces, not buying a discount mattress.
More recently, some companies have even begun creating their own sale holidays outside of
the Christmas season, like Amazon’s Prime Day in the summer, which this year surpassed
their 2016 Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
Cyber Monday is the name given to the Monday after Thanksgiving when online retailers have
big discounts on items and special promotions.
But the rise of online shopping isn’t necessarily directly to blame either, because sales on
Black Friday have gone down 32 percent since 2011 both in stores and online.
The main culprit here seems to be that people simply aren’t waiting for the weekend after
Thanksgiving or even Cyber Monday to do their holiday shopping.
One survey of 1500 consumers found that 52% of respondents
are less likely to shop on Black Friday this year, but 42% are also less likely to shop
on Cyber Monday.
Likely the most revealing finding from this survey however, was that nearly two-thirds
of respondents said they actually do their holiday shopping year-round.
And more than 40% of respondents specifically cited being able to get good deals on products
year-round as the reason they’re not shopping during Black Friday.
So is Black Friday going to disappear?
Well, it’s undoubtedly dying a somewhat slow death, but whether it will go away altogether
remains to be seen.
Many people and families actually enjoy going out to shop on Black Friday, it’s a tradition
for many that marks the start of the holiday season.
The likely scenario, however, is that Black Friday will simply become another normal random
excuse for claiming discounts at stores to drive more people to buy stuff … the same
reason we have sales on president’s day and July 4th sales.
At least Black Friday is transparent with its motives: it’s a holiday about shopping.
But don’t worry about businesses, they’ll be alright.
Black Friday may be losing popularity, but the numbers show that consumers are simply
spreading the profits across the year rather than concentrating it all into one weekend,
which in the end may actually be more beneficial to companies because it mitigates the risk
if sales actually aren’t as high as expected on that one day.
Let me know in the comments, is Black Friday a part of your holiday plans this year, would
you be sad to see it go?
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