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90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

bbc.com

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Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#151

Post by hebrox »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #140
ayngg wrote: post #46

It has been interesting watching the concept of Black Friday (and cyber monday) evolve over the past 20 or so years from being mostly an "American big box retailer dumping excess stock" thing to "oh boy its black Friday, time to go buy stuff!" thing. The entire event has basically been undeservingly co-opted by everyone looking to cash in on hype over an event that basically doesn't even resemble what made it a thing…

>Just like how for singles day in Asia, retailers shamelessly just jack prices up beforehand to make their sale prices look like discounts. This would be illegal in Denmark https://www.forbrugerombudsmanden.dk/hvad-gaelder/markedsfoe... English >If an item, for example, has cost DKK 1,000 throughout the year, and it is set up to DKK 1,500 for 6 weeks and then comes on “sale” for DKK 1,000 again, this is misleading, w…

I just read somewhere last week that the The Netherlands would get a similar law. Searching for a link, I found out that its actually the European "New Deal for Consumers" package [0]

[0]:https://leveranciers.bol.com/en/need-help/legislation/legisl...

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#152

Post by JanisL »

I think a lot of people in the comments are focused on the various sales aspects of why black Friday prices move the way they do however I think this year is an example of high inflation being more of a factor than anything else. I'd think this is an indicator that it is probably a good time to buy some inflation hedges instead of discretionary consumer goods.

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#153

Post by yosito »

dragonsky67 wrote: post #68

In Australia it's just confusing. Black Friday was named after devastating bush fires in 1938-39 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_bushfires . Any Friday that has bad bushfires on it tends to pick up the name. Over the last 5 years or so Black Friday sales have become a thing and I always suffer some degree of dissidence at the naming, as for me at least Black Friday has always had a negative connotation.

> dissidence

I think you mean dissonance

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#154

Post by ayngg »

mulvya wrote: post #126
ayngg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I didn't mean that what I said was the origin, only that was what it was marketed as around that period, and I should clarify my context that I was talking about what it was like in Canada, where it has only relatively recently become a thing. I guess what I meant to refer to was its etymological shift from the "selling excess stock" narrative in America (which itself was just a rebranding of the previous mean…

> "selling excess stock" narrative in America That wasn't the narrative in 2002, my first Black Friday.

Yeah you are right, it was more like getting into the black.

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#155

Post by lordnacho »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #140
ayngg wrote: post #46

It has been interesting watching the concept of Black Friday (and cyber monday) evolve over the past 20 or so years from being mostly an "American big box retailer dumping excess stock" thing to "oh boy its black Friday, time to go buy stuff!" thing. The entire event has basically been undeservingly co-opted by everyone looking to cash in on hype over an event that basically doesn't even resemble what made it a thing…

>Just like how for singles day in Asia, retailers shamelessly just jack prices up beforehand to make their sale prices look like discounts. This would be illegal in Denmark https://www.forbrugerombudsmanden.dk/hvad-gaelder/markedsfoe... English >If an item, for example, has cost DKK 1,000 throughout the year, and it is set up to DKK 1,500 for 6 weeks and then comes on “sale” for DKK 1,000 again, this is misleading, w…

Question is whether this is enforced? Is there a way to fine firms? Can you complain about them?

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#156

Post by bryanrasmussen »

lordnacho wrote: post #155
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just like how for singles day in Asia, retailers shamelessly just jack prices up beforehand to make their sale prices look like discounts. This would be illegal in Denmark https://www.forbrugerombudsmanden.dk/hvad-gaelder/markedsfoe... English >If an item, for example, has cost DKK 1,000 throughout the year, and it is set up to DKK 1,500 for 6 weeks and then comes on “sale” for DKK 1,000 again, this is misleading, w…

Question is whether this is enforced? Is there a way to fine firms? Can you complain about them?

the site I linked to is the consumer rights ombudsmand, so you can complain to them, and the consumer rights ombudsmand can also undertake independent investigations if she wants (although unsure about how that works)

on edit: consumer rights of course covers more than this but going through the site can find cases where companies have been fined etc. for violations of rights - for example https://www.forbrugerombudsmanden.dk/nyheder/forbrugerombuds...

in this case company reported to police for illegal telephone sales.

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#157

Post by beebeepka »

tpxl wrote: post #121
beebeepka wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam sales lost all meaning years ago. It happens to everything that transitions from rare to usual

They haven't lost meaning, you can still wait a bit to get your game cheaper. It does usually follow a pattern of: opening sale 10%, full price for a bit, seasonal sales 10-50%, eventually up to 90% off during seasonal sales.

Sure. But have you not noticed how the same, now oldish, games go on sale for the exact same amount for years and years?

I can tell without looking that Cities: Skylines is sold for 6.99 euro. Or the latest Civilization game at 15 euro. Or bioshock infinite at 7.99 euro or so.

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#158

Post by mrweasel »

sandos wrote: post #150
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in slovenia. We literally have all-month black friday "deals".

In Sweden we have "black week" starting monday before black friday, then of course black friday, cyber weeked, cyber monday. Then there is any number of made-up things by various sellers too. Traditionally there is always a sale between christmas and new years, and basically all of January too. I think this year was not very common in that for example TVs had the same low price the entire week, usually someone has a…

Denmark it's the same deal. "Black Week/Month", mostly because at least for online retailers, stores don't want to deal with the high influx of customers on a single day.

Personally I liked "Mellandagsrea" more than Black Friday back in the day. It was much more calm.

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#159

Post by matsemann »

magicalhippo wrote: post #18

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…

At least we got okay laws stopping companies from doing outright scams. An item has to have had the price for a certain time before you can advertise a new lower price as being on sale. They try to skimp around this by slowly increasing the prices in end of october. But then you also have to tell which price you're comparing to, and document that that price is a realistic price in the market. So you can't markup something from $100 to $200, wait a few weeks and say it's now 50% off at $100, if everyone else already was selling it for $100.

The news are also good at pointing out if some big company does something shady, I guess they have journalists trawling stores right now trying to uncover fake deals. Most big box stores have this year already lost a lot of goodwill after news after news broke about how they would try to force employees to not unionize.

Most stores have been indexed by prisjakt.no for quite a few years. So all price history is there, making it easy to see if it's a real offer or not.

Re: 90% of Black Friday deals were the same price or cheaper six months before

#160

Post by smnrchrds »

selimthegrim wrote: post #120
smnrchrds wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean I thought Black Friday was when Shah killed people in Jaleh Square? I guess you had to be there.

You are not wrong. But almost everyone is calling this shopping event "Black Friday" (as in the English name, not translated to Persian) which does not sound anything like "Jom'e-ye Siah" (the proper translation, also used to refer to the historical even you mentioned).
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