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Okay, it's that time of year again, and I see everyone getting all into an uproar over "Black Friday".
And once again I want to hide in a burrow, away from the idiotic behavior of clueless people acting clueless all in the name of "giving".
A few points to remember:
1) Retail is pure democracy, and you vote with your dollars. Businesses (stores) can do nothing without the assent of willing consumers, rewarding them with dollars.
2) "Sales" are not "steals". Sale prices, bargains, deals, discounts, etc. are written into the profit margin of an item before the merchandise even leaves the factory. That means that if an item is marked at some "low low" cost for Black Friday, that is the price it was intended to be sold for. The "Suggested Retail" price and all those numbers that are crossed out before the one you think is a "bargain"? Those are there to make you think you're getting a deal, and to make you feel psychologically comfortable with the price you're paying, which is exactly the price the company wants you to pay. No less.
3) There is no objective business reason that a so-called bargain can or should be offered only at a specific time or date. Limiting the offer is a retailer's attempt to hype their business and get a quick estimate on a season's performance. If nobody shows up on Friday, they'll still have the merchandise on hand and the need to move it, they WILL create new "deals" and schemes to get it out of their stockroom by Dec. 24th.
4) Opening stores for "off" hours, the "Midnight Madness" sales, etc., only combines the false impression of a "discount" (in #2) with the hype of #3. It does not display your consumer savvy, it only demonstrates the sick effectiveness of cheap ploys. Worse, voting with your dollars at midnight the night after a holiday means voting FOR companies that require their lowest-paid employees (the cashiers and stockroom attendants) to work a middle-of-the-night shift. For consumers that buy into the cheap ploys.
So go stand in line at midnight to get your "bargains". But look at everyone working in that store, when you do. See them, at midnight or two a.m.? Those aren't automatons, they're people, and they have families (at home, sleeping, probably) and holiday gift shopping of their own to do. And unlike you, the shopper, they didn't have a choice to be there. Holiday shifts are mandatory for those retailers.
Here's the thing that people have a hard time grokking: If the stores threw a sale, and nobody showed up, they would still run those same discounts later on, during normal business hours. The merchandise has to move for the company to make a profit. An executive would look at the spreadsheets and say "Hmm, people like our widgets, even more than the competition, but the prime buying hours are between 8 and 10 am, and then again between 2 and 3. We're wasting money on all that staff, all night long." And next year, things would be a little different. Instead, each year they come up with even more and more extreme plays, and each year, more and more people, blindly following the advertising, fall for it, and each year it gets worse for everyone.
I have it easy: my shop is stable, and my workers well-cushioned. I can tell you right now how many visitors we'll have and much money we're going to make on Friday, and it's not going to be any chaos at all. But other people don't have it so lucky, and I cringe for them.
I cringe, too, for all the people telling me (like I should be happy for them, since I'm a shopkeeper) that they're looking forward to standing in a line at midnight. I only grimace. You're being played, sucker, and worse: you're hurting other people in the process.
Each dollar you spend is a vote for something. What kind of world are you voting for?
And once again I want to hide in a burrow, away from the idiotic behavior of clueless people acting clueless all in the name of "giving".
A few points to remember:
1) Retail is pure democracy, and you vote with your dollars. Businesses (stores) can do nothing without the assent of willing consumers, rewarding them with dollars.
2) "Sales" are not "steals". Sale prices, bargains, deals, discounts, etc. are written into the profit margin of an item before the merchandise even leaves the factory. That means that if an item is marked at some "low low" cost for Black Friday, that is the price it was intended to be sold for. The "Suggested Retail" price and all those numbers that are crossed out before the one you think is a "bargain"? Those are there to make you think you're getting a deal, and to make you feel psychologically comfortable with the price you're paying, which is exactly the price the company wants you to pay. No less.
3) There is no objective business reason that a so-called bargain can or should be offered only at a specific time or date. Limiting the offer is a retailer's attempt to hype their business and get a quick estimate on a season's performance. If nobody shows up on Friday, they'll still have the merchandise on hand and the need to move it, they WILL create new "deals" and schemes to get it out of their stockroom by Dec. 24th.
4) Opening stores for "off" hours, the "Midnight Madness" sales, etc., only combines the false impression of a "discount" (in #2) with the hype of #3. It does not display your consumer savvy, it only demonstrates the sick effectiveness of cheap ploys. Worse, voting with your dollars at midnight the night after a holiday means voting FOR companies that require their lowest-paid employees (the cashiers and stockroom attendants) to work a middle-of-the-night shift. For consumers that buy into the cheap ploys.
So go stand in line at midnight to get your "bargains". But look at everyone working in that store, when you do. See them, at midnight or two a.m.? Those aren't automatons, they're people, and they have families (at home, sleeping, probably) and holiday gift shopping of their own to do. And unlike you, the shopper, they didn't have a choice to be there. Holiday shifts are mandatory for those retailers.
Here's the thing that people have a hard time grokking: If the stores threw a sale, and nobody showed up, they would still run those same discounts later on, during normal business hours. The merchandise has to move for the company to make a profit. An executive would look at the spreadsheets and say "Hmm, people like our widgets, even more than the competition, but the prime buying hours are between 8 and 10 am, and then again between 2 and 3. We're wasting money on all that staff, all night long." And next year, things would be a little different. Instead, each year they come up with even more and more extreme plays, and each year, more and more people, blindly following the advertising, fall for it, and each year it gets worse for everyone.
I have it easy: my shop is stable, and my workers well-cushioned. I can tell you right now how many visitors we'll have and much money we're going to make on Friday, and it's not going to be any chaos at all. But other people don't have it so lucky, and I cringe for them.
I cringe, too, for all the people telling me (like I should be happy for them, since I'm a shopkeeper) that they're looking forward to standing in a line at midnight. I only grimace. You're being played, sucker, and worse: you're hurting other people in the process.
Each dollar you spend is a vote for something. What kind of world are you voting for?
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From:
Anti consumerism
Black Friday doesn't exist here, so I'm far away from all the hype, but my college friend used to celebrate anti-consumerism day on the day after Thanksgiving. I like the idea of voting with my dollars by not spending them at all. (The older I get, the more I realize that in my ideal life inside my head, I'm opting out of the consumer cycle entirely.)
From:
Re: Anti consumerism
But we can be more attentive about how we spend, whenever we do, and what we say through that spending. I've actually found a great amount of joy through attentive buying, or conscious consumerism, in the years since I first became a shopkeeper and realized how much power "buying power" really is. In my opinion, it really helps to think of money as votes, and that way, the gifts that I give I can really feel good about, because not only am I giving to the original recipient, but also I "voted" for whomever made (or provided) that thing in the first place. Shopping is gift-giving, when done attentively.
From:
Re: Anti consumerism
If we're being literal, every being is a consumer. But this is different from being a part of a consumerist society. (This is what I intended to say rather than consumer cycle.) The idea of Black Friday says that we place such a high value on consumerism that we're willing to plan our lives around corporate and retail decisions.
This latter sense is what I would like to get away from, and the idea that we are living a disposable life. What Black Friday at the mall says to me is: You won't be happy unless you have all these many whatevers, and we're trying to help you obtain them. I understand that companies are not actually helping consumers - they're trying to move product.
So, I like the idea of voting with dollars. In addition, I like the idea of finding ways to simplify and reduce or avoid the need to consume at the pace that Black Friday (and the holiday season) encourages.
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Re: Anti consumerism
Very good point.
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Re: Anti consumerism
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One year I worked at the Mall's "Ambassador Center" and was grateful for the manager who flatly said that people had 364 other days to shop so we didn't need to stay open late just because they were desperate to get those last few gift certificates since they hadn't found anything else yet. Maybe the ubiquity of gift cards in groceries and gas stations will help ease that nightmare of screaming customers on the wrong side of the "This Lane Closed" sign.
And why isn't there more horror at the the yearly trampling of both shoppers and employees? Why is that seen as amusing instead of as a national embarrassment that getting a snuggie for 49 cents is worth someone's death or disability?
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This Black Friday and Cyber Monday stuff is out of hand.
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I'm sure there's are occasional cases of places advertising things at extremely low price, that they may even lose money on, but that would attract so many people to the stores, and nobody leaves with just one thing, so they'd still make tons of money.
So unless you just bought *that* one item, you're a sucker.
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That could be. Seems like Best Buy was forced to end their selling of CDs at below cost (if that was really happening at all). The idea was that they'd bring people in to buy music, and they'd also buy iPods, big screen TVs, computers and washing machines.