Black Friday
Black weekend
Cyber Monday
Black week
What next, “Black month”? Here we go, the sale period before Christmas has started. Black Friday that was originally celebrated, if that can be said, in the USA on Friday after Thanksgiving. However, it has spread and nowadays shops all over the world take part in this shopping mania offering all kinds of discounts and campaigns for their customers to speed up the sales. Furthermore, Black Friday is not just a Friday anymore. It’s also Cyber Monday, Black weekend and now even the whole Black week. And then from the beginning of December, straight after, Christmas campaigns start and Christmas sales straight after Christmas if now even a bit earlier. Not forgetting the Single’s day a few weeks back. Is this what we need, more and more sales to encourage us to buy things we don’t maybe really need?
Black Friday encourages us to buy things we don’t need, just because it is cheap / much cheaper. If you value your products as a designer/entrepreneur/shop owner you may think twice if you want to take part in this shopping mania. It is not sustainable to make people buy things they don’t need, instead, we should focus on how we could encourage customers to buy only what they need and can hold and use a long time, not what they suddenly want at that moment. As a consumer, it is also good to be a bit sceptic about Black Friday offers. It is detected that some of the online stores increase the original prices of most wanted products just before or during Black Friday to be able to offer a bigger discount per cent that again catches customers attention and encourages to buy more.
I have felt overwhelmed when walking in the city this week. “Everything -50 %”, “Best. Friday. Ever. Save up to 60%”, “Are you ready for the year’s biggest shopping day?”, “Only this week” etc. signs everywhere. All this is to activate a shopping hysteria. For me, this causes an opposite reaction. It’s so much too much that I don’t want to get anything. I want to fight against unnecessary consuming. However, I’m happy that there are companies that have decided to not to take part in Black Friday. Instead, they have come with better alternatives, for example donating x amount of sales to charity. Yes, this might make the customer buy the product from just this company and on Black Friday instead of next week, but don’t encourage to buy unnecessary impulse purchases. Instead, the company can make something good and the customer can feel good about the purchase and being part of the donation. Furthermore, there is “do not buy anything day” which is celebrated on the same day with Black Friday and White Monday on Monday before Black Friday to celebrate a circular lifestyle. I prefer White Monday the most since it encourages consumers to enjoy the products they already own, take good care and repair those instead of buying new and preferring second hand over brand new.
However, we have to remember that Black Friday and other sales might be important for some entrepreneurs as well as for some consumers. I think it’s okay to buy a product on Black Friday if that’s something you really need, have been thinking a long time but just couldn’t have afforded earlier. But like said before, be conscious.
My best advice for Black Friday and other sales: think twice before buying. Do I really need this or do I just buy it because it’s cheap/on sale?
VIIVI
Post is slightly edited on the 25th of November 2020: I added why I like White Monday the most, corrected some typos and reloaded the photos.