BLACK FRIDAY – a shopping marathon
Have you ever heard about a day when people at
midnight, all over the United States, gather in lines waiting for shopping
malls to open and start bargain hunting? No? Maybe one more hint: in this
special period of time (actually it lasts nearly 4 days!) almost all retailers
come out with the so-called ‘door buster sales’ offering discounts reaching
even 90%. Still nothing? So let me introduce you to BLACK FRIDAY, the day when
Christmas shopping season starts. This year it’s going to be November 27th.
There are several different theories where the name
comes from but most of them refer to the highest profits gained by the stores
during these few days. The Black Friday starts the day after the Thanksgiving
and in some of the states is observed as a holiday. The Thanksgiving holiday, the
weekend that follows it, and Black Friday are a four-day shopping raid. It is
estimated that an average customer spends nearly 400$, which results in roughly
50$ billion across the nation.
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The biggest enthusiasts, hoping for the best occasions,
camp outside shops for days to secure a better place in the line to get desired
items. When shops are finally opened the race begins. A common store policy is
to give best discounts during the first half an hour or only for a certain
number of customers. Crowds on limited space rushing to get fancy presents
often are the cause of accidents and conflicts. According to a peculiar web
page http://blackfridaydeathcount.com/, there
have already been reported 7 deaths and 98 injuries throughout the United
States since 2006, among them: a man was trampled to death and a supermarket employee was stabbed.
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http://callofcutolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Urban-Outfitters-11.png
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Although the Polish shopping tradition isn’t so
“developed” and does not assign any particular day for mass buying, there are
certain signs showing that we are actually following the American path. No
doubts you have heard about Lidl’s occasional discounts, if by any chance you
haven’t, check out this link:
I wish it was an
exception but it’s not. Such things happen more and more often and I fear it
finally may lead to a nationwide event such as Black Friday.
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Personally I hate crowds and lines but paradoxically
almost every year I take part in the Christmas shopping rush because of my
laziness. It’s always too late for online shopping…
What do you think about the Black Friday shopping
tradition? Have you ever fought for cheaper products or stood in a line longer
than an hour just to get something cheaper? If there was an opportunity to get
your dreamed item almost for free, would you take part in something like the Black
Friday run?
Sources:
Comments
Of course it depends how much money do you have. If people are very poor they are ‘couponing’ or track all promotions in shop just to buy something 1 zł cheaper. But they do not take into account how much time thay waste on planning, travelling, how it the cost of travel to other shop etc. I hope I will never be so poor to do that.
to keep track of all this great offers you must devote lots of energy and time,and as we all know time is money, so I guess eventually we break even. Let alone the fact that Black Friday is mainly about buying fancy things whichthe poorest shouldn't chase anyway.
However, I really like the discounts that are offered online on Black Friday (for example, on Steam platform) - great prices and no queues :)
A few years back I was on a premiere of Diablo III with a few friends and it got really crazy when they started selling the game. The crowd literally picked me up and people kept pushing for no apparent reason. Two meters back there was a lot of space and they just kept pushing as it could somehow speed up things. Standing in line is apparently sooo hard. I would never again attend such event and my friends ended up buying the game on the next day because we obviously left the crowd.
Anyway most people could afford a new TV or anything if they would just save a bit for a period of time. People tend to spend more than they would normally just because there is a discount and I don't get the mentality "it's cheaper so I have to buy it even though it's useless and I don't need it". In my opinion your time is more valuable and I can't imagine standing in line for days just to get something. It would have to be something truly extraordinary and one of a kind, I can't really imagine wanting something so bad.
Here are two "funny" polish videos. The first one shows people crowding and running up the moving stairs just to get... a free cheeseburger - which costs about 3 zlotys.
Burger Rush
The second one shows people in front of H&M. I don't really know what was going on there but there is a girl saying that she is pregnant (a great idea to come to such an "event" then) or someone who nearly faints because they were standing there for so long. There is no sound in parts of the video.
H&M video
Link
Black Friday is undoubtedly a great chance to buy an expensive product sometimes for half price. It is cool.
Thankfully you can buy new games on the Internet. Or get some discounts on RTV there. Internet is the best source of everything, furniture, electronics, hobby-stuff ... friends and loved ones.
There is no need for a physical shops and queues anymore. Well ok, its best to buy food in normal shops. Buying food online is the boundary one shall never cross.
Bless the Internet.
Lately, ratings records on youtube and was shown also in the media the short movie which present situation at the opening shopping center in Łódź where two elderly granparents ran for a free burger on escalators in the opposite direction (here is link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bBzOvCGDpw).
On the one hand it's funny but also a little sad because in Poland there are many such situations. Why? It's worth over them stop and think about - where is their source? According to me a lot of this kind of situations is caused because of economic situation in Poland where people are poor and they can't afford the products in normal prices because price-earnings ratio is too big.
I like discounts, who doesn't? But I couldn't stay a few hours in a queue just to get something cheaper. It feels like a waste of time which I could spend on, let's say, earning the money I need to buy something. And I hate crowds, I feel very uncomfortable when there's too many people around me, rushing, pushing me and shouting. So in short, no, I wouldn't take part in Black Friday, at least not the real life one, in actual shop (I had a chance to enjoy Steam's discounts which Patrycja mentioned).
Therefore, I would never take part in Black Friday run even if there was an opportunity to get my dreamed item almost for free. I think my health and my nerves are much more important for me than such dreamed item.
In my opinion this is just another idea of shops how to increase sales and maximize profits.
I think that in a few years in Poland it will look like in other countries. We're heading to the place where people are crazy about promotons and are not considering if they need those products or not - they will buy them only because of great discount.
Yeah... nope.
What do i think about the idea: driven economy, completely unnecessary for "normal" people.
I usually make use of some of Black Friday deals, but only online on the Internet - I honestly cannot imagine participating in something that looks similar to those videos.
This is just dumb, I'd suppose most of those people are able to earn more cash in the time they waste fighting there than the amount they actually save due to those discounts.
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