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

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

#201

Post by hihihihi1234 »

dghughes wrote: post #197
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…

I'm Canadian in 1999 I was in Scranton, Pa. for Thanksgiving and my friend said Black Friday tomorrow. I said what's that? She was shocked I didn't know about it. Back home it was unheard of since our Thanksgiving is in October. I didn't go to a store I headed home but now I wish I would have experienced it.

Until recently, Black Friday didn't exist at all in the UK, and I only knew of it from American TV. It's suddenly become a big thing here within the last ~5 years. This makes me said.

(It's not our first American cultural import either. Halloween has been a thing in the UK for as long as I've been alive, but my parents' generation didn't grow up with it.)

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

#202

Post by hugocbp »

danlugo92 wrote: post #185
gaius_baltar wrote: post #11

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.

How do you say it in portuguese?

Black Fraude

We still use the first part from English, but the second is Fraud. Which is almost the same as the English word, but phonetically it is closer to how Brazilians say Black Friday.

It is almost the same, though. Black Fraud is a good enough approximation.

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

#203

Post by tm-guimaraes »

dspillett wrote: post #192
noisy_boy wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You joke but I recently heard a term "original copy" going around in my wife's circle. Turns out, that term is to signify something that is a near-perfect copy of a designer item. These are not cheap either; they sell for at least 20x the price of a "non-original copy" i.e. inferior fake.

Some years ago a friend (who I've slipped out of contact with since) who was into fashion to the point it might be called an obsession, used the term “original copy” to specifically refer to side copies, made in the same factory as the actual original, likely by the same workers, off the record, with excess materials from the end of an official production run (or simply stolen, sorry “redirected”, materials). Sometim…

There is a "nearby" Shoe Industrial Area, in the major city I work. And in the city centre, you can see a lot of low cost shoe shops selling shoe-ware that came from "excess production" to luxury Italian brands. You can get real nice deals there, but you have to be careful if you are buying actual excess or just something that did not pass QA (which are most)

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

#204

Post by GuB-42 »

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 don't know how it works in Denmark but I've seen that being worked around all the times.

A typical thing is to make a special model just for the sales, which is the same as the normal model with maybe some small differences like firmware tweaks, different accessories, different stickers, etc... They put one or two samples in the corner of the shop at an inflated price, not intended for anyone to actually purchase, then when the sales come, they unload the truck and proudly show the new "discounted" price.

This way, they can justify that they had the product available for a long time, that it didn't sell, and they can officially make the discount.

They don't even have to keep stock except for the one sample. You can get a funny situation sometimes when someone actually wants to buy the sample at the sticker (inflated) price and the shop actively tries to discourage the customer from buying it despite the huge margin. That's because without the sample, they won't be able to justify the "discount" later.

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

#205

Post by SapporoChris »

VRay wrote: post #187
allen_lasn wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The marginal value of your time was not $0. You could have been doing something other than shopping with your time. That thing could have afforded you pleasure or had some other utility. The dollar value of that utility was not zero. Even resting has some benefit to you. Unless your only alternative is some mildly unpleasant activity which doesn't allow you to rest, that time was not valueless.

> Unless your only alternative is some mildly unpleasant activity which doesn't allow you to rest, that time was not valueless. So you're saying I shouldn't be playing MMORPGs all the time?

Entertainment is useful. Excess entertainment is wasteful. Keyword being excess. I calculate the waste as: cost of the entertainment plus potential loss of income from missed opportunitys of work and training. Of course if your entertainment is bring some other tangible benefits, like exercise, then that needs to be factored in.

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

#206

Post by bryanrasmussen »

jcims wrote: post #200
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…

This probably just works against shoppers in Denmark, doesn't it? Global brands are going to likely raise their prices across the board. When Black Friday comes, what's left to do but limit the possible discount in countries where there is a similar restriction? I can't tell if I'm seeing in-country prices from retailers in Denmark, but the Samsung 'The Frame' TV 55" (QE55LS03A) seems to be available all over the pla…

I've never heard this described as a tactic of international brands, but only of retailers, so I guess I would need to see data that showed that brands actually did this.

And if the brand did this - how would it actually work. They would be telling the brand pay use 2000 for half the year, and then coming to black friday they would tell the brand now you only need to pay us 1500? I'm not getting the angle here.

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

#207

Post by smilespray »

dghughes wrote: post #197
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…

I'm Canadian in 1999 I was in Scranton, Pa. for Thanksgiving and my friend said Black Friday tomorrow. I said what's that? She was shocked I didn't know about it. Back home it was unheard of since our Thanksgiving is in October. I didn't go to a store I headed home but now I wish I would have experienced it.

I'm sorry you had to spend Thanksgiving in Scranton.

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

#208

Post by blowfish721 »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #143
executesorder66 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know the incomes of random people visiting your site?

I don't, it's basically just a "normal wage" for non-professionals in Australia. My point was that people will spend an hour working to make $30 but won't spend a minute looking around to save $50.

I’m probably one of those people that don’t bother with the sponsored items. I’m not much of a spontanious shopper, if I buy something then I most often know what I want before I even go to the shopping site. Example is if I’m buying a tv then I don’t care if Samsung has an equal model at half off if I’m already set on getting a specific LG. I do look sround to see who has a better deal on the item I’m looking for however.

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

#209

Post by dghughes »

smilespray wrote: post #207
dghughes wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Canadian in 1999 I was in Scranton, Pa. for Thanksgiving and my friend said Black Friday tomorrow. I said what's that? She was shocked I didn't know about it. Back home it was unheard of since our Thanksgiving is in October. I didn't go to a store I headed home but now I wish I would have experienced it.

I'm sorry you had to spend Thanksgiving in Scranton.

It was great I had a great time at the Genet's, had some Yugoslavian moonshine too. Alcohol is astonishing cheap in the US.

Scranton reminds me a lot of Nova Scotia or more specifically Cape Breton (part of Nova Scotia). Coal, steel, and trains plus the lay of the land too.

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

#210

Post by Sharlin »

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…

The spread of consumerism gives me so much anxiety at a time when everyone especially in the West should concentrate on how to reduce consumption in all parts of their lives :( But satisfying your hunter-gatherer instincts just feels so much better to most people…
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