The allure of slashed prices is tempting for most, especially around this time of the year when the familiar jingle of Christmas music begins to follow us. For those who buy avidly into Black Friday, it is almost like a competitive sport; hunting down the cheapest deals or camping outside retailers ready to pounce the moment the shutters go up. However, despite the enthusiasm with which we have adopted this tradition, Black Friday is still a relatively new phenomenon in the UK.
Beginning in the US, ‘Black Friday’ is the name given to the annual post-thanksgiving sales. There is some conjecture on the origins of the name. According to The Guardian, it is thought to have been coined by the Philadelphia police department in the 1960s, to describe the smog caused by congested traffic heading into the city centre in order to get the best deals, alongside the longer shifts they would have to work in order to deal with higher demand. Although Black Friday is a long established tradition in the US, it wasn’t until 2013 that American owned companies, Asda and Amazon, gave UK consumers a taste of the Black Friday savings. Since then, the annual November sale has expanded to include most of the big-name retailers in the UK, and extended to a week-long event in both the UK and US, encompassing ‘Cyber Monday’ and ‘Small Business Saturday.’
The introduction of Black Friday in the UK was purely a capitalistic venture, without any veil of ‘post-holiday sales’ to justify it, in which many retailers have enthusiastically partaken. While I have no argument against lower prices for consumers, and this can be a great time to buy something which you may have had your eye on for a while, the nature of Black Friday instead exults in rampant consumerism and consequently, a surge in discarded impulse buys which are inundating landfill.
Overconsumption is a much more nuanced issue than one which can be solely blamed on the consumer. Symptomatic of late stage capitalism, new novel purchases pacify a population continually struggling with social and economic inequality, alongside an online social dimension which feels as though it is promoting an increasingly alienated version of life from the one the average person is living.
The ephemeral nature of the Black Friday sales puts pressure on consumers to ‘buy now or miss out,’ and with some companies cutting prices to only pennies for knick-knacks or clothing, customers are persuaded to impulse buy for the sake of it. The outcome of this impulse buying can be seen in the 80% of products bought in Black Friday sales that wind up in landfill, according to WasteManaged.
Not only is Black Friday bad for the environment, but it’s actually not as consumer-friendly as it may first appear. The main appeal of Black Friday – exclusively low prices – evaporates when we learn of the deceptive pricing strategy which many retailers use. In a study carried out by consumer group Which?, it was found that a majority of retailers hike up the prices of items in the months leading up to Black Friday, to then drop them back down during the sale period. In fact 98% of the items Which? examined were cheaper, or the same price, at at least one other point during the year. Thus completely demolishing the ‘buy it now or miss out’ ethos which underpins the Black Friday sales and the impulse-buying mayhem it is manufactured to promote.
If so much of what we’re buying in these ephemeral sales goes to landfill, are these shopping sprees actually bringing us happiness?