Is Black Friday such a good thing?

Rocker

Well, of course, there are the bargains!  But on Irish media today, trade representatives were talking about the distortion in trade due to Black Friday.  The concept is more or less standard practice these days but it seems to benefit larger organizations who run mail order sales.  Seeing the frenzy in the shopping centres in our local town today, I am not convinced that the bargains are all they claim to be.  What happens tomorrow then?  Probably a bit like the after Christmas sales.  Product that won't move are displayed at bargain prices.  

Value for money cannot be totally price based.  Buying the right product is always better than buying the same item at its cheapest price.

Anyone care to comment?

skunkwerx

Arseholes were still trying to get into our place as we were closing this eve at 10pm. 

For nothing more than a few quid savings on shit they wouldnt usually buy anyway. 

terada

Interesting topic. Its only good for consumers if deals are a) genuine and b) on stuff they were planning to buy anyway.

I'm sure it must distort sales for retailers pretty significantly, which could be good or bad depending on how they prepare for it.

jonnyburgo

Id be embarrased to be out on the high street with the rest of the clamouring zombies.
Dont need anything so didnt buy anything.

siremoon

terada said:

Interesting topic. Its only good for consumers if deals are a) genuine and b) on stuff they were planning to buy anyway.

I'm sure it must distort sales for retailers pretty significantly, which could be good or bad depending on how they prepare for it.

I always understood that the whole point of it, as originally conceived, was to distort trade. The day after thanksgiving was such a poor day for retailers in the US hence the name Black Friday.  The discounts started as a way of trying to stimulate sales on a traditionally bad sales day.

dindude

I was in the Asda eco-system work wise when they really pioneered it coming into the UK, back in 2013 ish I think.

It seemed the spirit of it was that the buyers would work with the suppliers to leverage huge deals - let’s buy a line of a 1000 TV’s we don’t usually stock and sell them through at crazy prices - that’s why it had such a different feel to it and why a genuine bargain could be had.

Now, some years on, its largely just a fire sale to remove crap from retailers, or barely worthwhile discounts as a token. Just a re-timed January sale then....

Sporky

dindude said:

let’s buy a line of a 1000 TV’s we don’t usually stock and sell them through at crazy prices - that’s why it had such a different feel to it and why a genuine bargain could be had

Except that they were usually B or C grade panels straight out of the reject bin at the Vestel factory.

Anyone you've heard of uses the S or A grade panels, so these aren't a bargain, they're just cheap. 

EricTheWeary

siremoon said:

terada said:

Interesting topic. Its only good for consumers if deals are a) genuine and b) on stuff they were planning to buy anyway.

I'm sure it must distort sales for retailers pretty significantly, which could be good or bad depending on how they prepare for it.

I always understood that the whole point of it, as originally conceived, was to distort trade. The day after thanksgiving was such a poor day for retailers in the US hence the name Black Friday.  The discounts started as a way of trying to stimulate sales on a traditionally bad sales day.

Oddly enough there was a programme about it on the radio this week and they said Black Friday is the start of the Golden Quarter ( lot of colours in this story) so it’s  the day when retail businesses go from being in the red to being in the black. The Golden  Quarter is when some retail businesses make their profit of the year - have a bad Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year and they run the whole year at a loss.
One of the people on the programme runs an online hosiery business and her story, IIRC, was that they run a straightforward 24 hour 15% off everything sale on Black Friday and do 100 times more business than on a typical day.

Black Friday is largely an online thing so it abuts some of the discussion in the recent Red Dog closure thread about the future of the high street. Offering meaningful Black Friday deals ( beyond clearing some old stock) isn’t really doable for a lot of bricks and mortar retailers. 

Jalapeno

I'm with Henry Rollins .....

guitars4you

In the USA, I believe the original idea of Black Friday  was to move on old/unwanted stock at silly low prices - So cash positive for the retailer and hence genuine bargains - Not sure if this is still the case in the USA but it has never really been such an event in the UK

Today many retailers look to their suppliers to buy stock in for the event  - So if dealer A buys a 100 TV's that are reduced from £999 to £799 for Black Friday  but only sell 70 of them - They will sooner or later have to do a deal on the other 30 to move them on - Hence the negative reports about prices can be cheaper throughout the year

Sure there will be some deals, but overall I believe the hype is bigger than reality - My gut feeling is that it has already diminished to a degree in the UK amongst some larger dealers

p90fool

siremoon said:

 The day after thanksgiving was such a poor day for retailers in the US hence the name Black Friday.  The discounts started as a way of trying to stimulate sales on a traditionally bad sales day. 

So the day after everyone has been giving thanks for everything they have they go out and stomp all over their neighbours to get 50 bucks off a TV they don't need.
And they say Americans don't do irony...

skunkwerx

p90fool said:

siremoon said:

 The day after thanksgiving was such a poor day for retailers in the US hence the name Black Friday.  The discounts started as a way of trying to stimulate sales on a traditionally bad sales day. 

So the day after everyone has been giving thanks for everything they have they go out and stomp all over their neighbours to get 50 bucks off a TV they don't need.
And they say Americans don't do irony...

I know right. 

Instagram was full of posts of Americans 'giving thanks', n I couldnt help but wonder if they were going to take part in buying material things because theyre cheaper day. 

skunkwerx

EricTheWeary said:

siremoon said:

terada said:

Interesting topic. Its only good for consumers if deals are a) genuine and b) on stuff they were planning to buy anyway.

I'm sure it must distort sales for retailers pretty significantly, which could be good or bad depending on how they prepare for it.

I always understood that the whole point of it, as originally conceived, was to distort trade. The day after thanksgiving was such a poor day for retailers in the US hence the name Black Friday.  The discounts started as a way of trying to stimulate sales on a traditionally bad sales day.

Oddly enough there was a programme about it on the radio this week and they said Black Friday is the start of the Golden Quarter ( lot of colours in this story) so it’s  the day when retail businesses go from being in the red to being in the black. The Golden  Quarter is when some retail businesses make their profit of the year - have a bad Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year and they run the whole year at a loss.
One of the people on the programme runs an online hosiery business and her story, IIRC, was that they run a straightforward 24 hour 15% off everything sale on Black Friday and do 100 times more business than on a typical day.

Black Friday is largely an online thing so it abuts some of the discussion in the recent Red Dog closure thread about the future of the high street. Offering meaningful Black Friday deals ( beyond clearing some old stock) isn’t really doable for a lot of bricks and mortar retailers. 

Purdy much how we find it. 

We never take the money in 10 months of the year, and rely upon mid Nov to mid Jan to take as much as we can to get us through another year. 

Last night too, I'd say it was a 50/50 split. Half the customers bringing up discounted stuff, the other half bringing up a lot of regular price stuff. Presumably for xmas gifts, or items for themselves that they held out for in hopes they'd be discounted, but werent..
 

I guess we jumped on the black friday thing, had some stock to discount, advertised it, knew the centre would be rammed, so wanted to get people in the door and rely on that they'll pick other items up too.

Either way the takings were certainly up, but we were still -£7000 off target.. we open 10am-10pm lol! 

No hope haha. 

57Deluxe

I was in the process of closing on a KLON clone for £8.75. and it got pulled - so, no...

thecolourbox

I've heard a few times that shops area only profitable during the Christmas build up, which begs the question, can't they just close the rest of the year? Seems a big faff to keep them running just to break even

boogieman

I’m in the US at the moment. There are some genuine bargains to be had here, as well as the Walmart frenzy for a crappy tv type deals. Black Friday now seems to last a week though so there don’t seem to be as many of the huge crushes and fights of past years (although the local news did just show two trailer trash skanks grappling on the floor over some perfume, but tbh it looked a bit staged). 

We went to Kohl’s yesterday evening (kind of similar to Debenhams). It was pretty quiet with minimal queues. Lots of stuff was 50-60% off, plus we had a 15% off everything voucher, plus another $10 off final total voucher. Then they gave us another $75 voucher to use on anything over the next week. We spent just under $275 altogether. I seriously don’t know how they make any profit at all on these deals. 

Garthy

Don't see a downside tbh, it's good for retailers, suppliers, advertisers, media & consumers.

Grumpyrocker

There are some genuine bargains to be had. WEX is doing 10 percent off quite a few Fujifilm camera lenses. I've got the set want for now, but if I'd need a lens I'd be all over that deal, especially as many of the lenses have a cashback offer too. 

ThePrettyDamned

Grumpyrocker said:

There are some genuine bargains to be had. WEX is doing 10 percent off quite a few Fujifilm camera lenses. I've got the set want for now, but if I'd need a lens I'd be all over that deal, especially as many of the lenses have a cashback offer too. 

I'm sorely tempted by a 50mm f/2 or the 55-200 variable aperture... Sounds like an ace lens. But I'm saving up for a house and I don't make money from my pictures so maybe another day.

Myranda

TV I almost bought was a good deal - £299 for a 43" 4K screen HDR, Local dimming back-lighting IPS panel... all the features I was looking for. Marked as £200 saving... because immediately before Black Friday the price was changed to £499 for a single day.

I only know this as I wanted to check the value for money the deal presented on Camel Camel Camel... It's normal price is £359 so it's only £60 saving... and with the Black Friday extra demand on shipping they could only deliver on a day I'd be at work, further impacting the value-for-money (my student job might be very well paid for a student £12.80 an hour is great, but it's zero hour, so can't book paid holiday, a day off would cost more than I would be saving)... 

Others have found things on "sale" that were more expensive than usual, or that were the same price as usual, using the same "hike the price up before so we can pretend people are saving money" trick...