[HN Gopher] Last year 90% of Black Friday deals were cheaper six...
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Last year 90% of Black Friday deals were cheaper six months before
sales event
Author : belter
Score : 67 points
Date : 2021-11-25 20:28 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| zeppers wrote:
| I worked in retail sales from 2004-2006 and I remember management
| ordering us to increase prices on items leading up to big sales.
| It seemed like fraud and it made me feel icky doing it.
|
| Especially when we would replace labels of an item that cost $99
| to say that it cost $139 and was now on sale for $99.
|
| Luckily I haven't had to work in retail since...
| maccard wrote:
| > It seemed like fraud and it made me feel icky doing it.
|
| In many places, it _is_ fraud (well, illegal but still). In the
| UK, the higher price must have been offered for 28 days out of
| the last 6 months.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| I suppose you can just pick the slowest 15% of days, then. If
| a price was randomly jacked up on a Tuesday, but nobody was
| around to buy it, was it really raised?
| Animats wrote:
| It's Buy Nothing Day, per Adbusters.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Here in Norway we didn't have Black Friday until like a decade
| ago or so, when shops started introducing it. They even had to
| explain what it was all about in the ads.
|
| Now it's no longer Black Friday, no... now we have Black Week and
| even Black November, filled with 10% off prices or deep discounts
| on old junk nobody wanted...
|
| There's still a few really good deals, and there's a positive to
| concentrating the deals to one day: you're looking for deals.
| Doesn't help me that a thing was off even more a few months ago
| if I missed it then.
| belval wrote:
| Same in Canada, the funny part is that we do have thanksgiving
| but it's actually a month earlier so Black Friday is just
| sitting in November for no reason other than to nudge people
| into doing their Christmas shopping.
| hogFeast wrote:
| The reason why it has spread is American retailers,
| particularly Amazon, entering international markets.
|
| In the US, Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the
| year so American retailers discounted on that day. As they
| went into other countries, they began offering sales on that
| day too. In the UK, Boxing Day was traditionally the busiest
| shopping day of the year but most shops close on this day
| now. Wikipedia tells me that Boxing Day used to be the
| busiest shopping day in Canada.
|
| I think the reason the practice is spreading into the rest of
| the month is because of the higher level of competition
| online. One retailer does Black Friday, then another retailer
| tries to jump earlier, then another. In the UK, we have had
| companies trying weekly and monthly sales.
|
| The sales aren't bad, I think some retailers (Amazon,
| particularly) don't offer great value...ironic given they
| started Black Friday here in the UK...but if you hunt about,
| you can usually find some decent deals.
| speeder wrote:
| Here in Brazil this year I saw a bunch of Black November. Yes,
| in english, in a country where people normally don't know
| english.
|
| Even weirder, is today a cosmetics company said that "Black
| Friday" (in english like that!) is a racist name and they are
| comitted to changing it.
|
| Most people here don't even know what "Black" means. (or
| "Friday", for that matter).
|
| The amount of USA culture "invading" our culture is really
| disturbing me. (alongside some other stuff like Coca-Cola in
| fur coat red santa, in the middle of our super hot summers, or
| people trying to plant conifer trees in sunny wetlands and then
| covering them with artificial snow, or the dish "Rosquinha",
| that got renamed "Donut" after Dunkin Donuts came here).
|
| EDIT: remembered that some years ago the government made
| illegal for stores to write only in english on their
| storefronts, after there was a huge mania for writing "xxx% off
| on randomproduct" and this was causing confusion among
| consumers that had no idea what that means.
| sveme wrote:
| I'm currently in the market for a dryer and checked the prices
| the last couple of days. It went from 649 Euros a week ago up to
| 739 Euros today. Fully expect it to fall back to 699 Euros
| tomorrow.
| mthoms wrote:
| That's probably illegal (depending on region). I'd consider
| reporting it.
| dvh wrote:
| I'm curious, why put prices back? Why not leave it at elevated
| levels?
| saurik wrote:
| So you can say there's a Black Friday sale, which is the
| premise behind why the prices went up in the first place: so
| they could be lowered for a sale.
| williamdclt wrote:
| Tomorrow is the sale, they've raised the price in preparation
| for the sale
| mianos wrote:
| That is clearly illegal down here in Australia. One of the
| largest on line retailers here, Kogan, was even prosecuted:
| https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/kogan-to-pay-350000-fo...
| smnrchrds wrote:
| Does the law catch the retailer who have to products with
| identical specs and different model numbers? Mattress
| companies have long used the trick to advertise permanent
| sale pricing that is just standard pricing in North America.
| [deleted]
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Could 2020 have been some peculiar outlier because of Covid and
| supply issues?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| I can't be bothered finding the data, but I've seen graphs from
| previous years that show many items raise in price around
| October to get ready for a Black Friday "sale." Generally there
| are a few items that end up cheaper on the day, but most are
| fairly standard sales.
| dmurray wrote:
| 6 months before Black Friday last year was at the height of the
| first Covid panic featuring regional shortages of food staples,
| toilet paper, etc... So I would think not.
| gaius_baltar wrote:
| This have been a joke for a few years here in Brazil, we call the
| day "Black Fraud" (sounds a little better in Portuguese)
|
| The relevant point is that Black Friday is an "artificial" event
| here: we do not celebrate Thanksgiving Day so there is no need
| for a the stores to get rid of unsold inventory. It started just
| ~10 years ago when marketers began advertising it as a sales day.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| Iranian companies are now advertising Black Friday sales. Even
| though in Iran we do not celebrate Thanksgiving, we do not
| celebrate Christmas (except for Christians of course), and even
| our new year starts at spring equinox in late March. Black
| Friday is literally a random day in fall which has no
| significance. Yet there are Black Friday sales now.
| orev wrote:
| Black Friday is only associated with Thanksgiving in the US
| because it marks just about 1 month before Christmas, but
| otherwise it's not part of Thanksgiving. It's also to start
| selling products for Christmas gifts -- not related to getting
| rid of unsold inventory.
|
| Most companies have a fiscal year ending in December, so it's
| mostly just about getting that last boost of sales before the
| end of the year.
| mtmail wrote:
| Stores in Europe advertise "Black Week". I've seen "Single's
| Day" sales even
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singles%27_Day#Outside_China).
| conqrr wrote:
| Have seen this on everty single TV deal on Amazon at
| camelcamelcamel price history. Doesn't look like a good to buy a
| TV
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(page generated 2021-11-25 23:00 UTC)