Black Friday, the most popular shopping day of the year, is coming up, but this day isn’t what it used to be. During the mid 2010’s, people would line up for hours on Black Friday morning waiting for stores to open so they could be the first to grab the best items. Now, people are less enthusiastic about the day and prefer to just stay home and shop online. Is it worth your time to hassle through stores and mall parking lots for Black Friday sales?
The decline of excitement for this day comes from the decrease in sales over the years. Back when online shopping was less popular, stores would have 60% off or more on almost all of their items on Black Friday. These extreme sales created both chaos and determination from customers to get as many products as they could. Since then, customers are now only seeing sales at just 20-30% off, discouraging them from engaging in regular Black Friday activities. “Black Friday sales don’t really influence me to go shopping in stores as they used to. I really only shop online on that day and avoid going to in person stores,” says senior Noah Culbertson. We see sales year round ranging from 10-30% at various stores so seeing these same sales on Black Friday means nothing to regular shoppers.
In addition, as years have gone by, retailers have begun opening their doors and offering sales throughout Thanksgiving week rather than leaving them just for Friday. By that time, customers would have already taken advantage of sales leaving Black Friday holding less significance than in previous years. The prevalence of online shopping has also created a popular sales day known as “Cyber Monday”. This term refers to the Monday after Thanksgiving where stores offer huge deals but only online, giving shoppers even more chances to make use of sales. The expansion of sales on more than just one day has created less pressure on consumers to go out on Black Friday and buy as much as they can as quickly as possible.
However, even with all these factors Black Friday has always remained the busiest day for U.S. stores with nearly 1 in 5 Americans still planning to do most of their shopping on that day. Senior Abigail Wilkinson said, “I think Black Friday is a good day to buy gifts for people because you can save a lot of money, and the holidays are coming up which makes present buying very expensive. If you buy gifts on Black Friday, you can get holiday shopping out of the way and at a lower price.” While these sales aren’t as extravagant as they used to be, it is still a huge money saver to those buying expensive technology such as TVs, laptops, or phones, and shoppers are known to never miss out on deals.
While we may not be seeing fights over items occurring in stores anytime soon, Black Friday continues to hold significance within shoppers regardless of changes like decreased sales. Many people still get good use out of the sales, especially when buying very expensive products where the deals are better than usual, making the day not so useless for them. However, to those going Black Friday shopping for regular items like clothes, there is no hurry to take advantage of these sales when the same deals are offered throughout the year both in person and online.
