Why We Think Black Friday is a Load of Rubbish

You may think Black Friday is an excellent opportunity to grab some deals, but research has found that just one in seven Black Friday deals offer a genuine discount. At Techbuyer we believe in providing the best prices possible all year round.

Black Friday has one major pull - low prices. It promises to provide you with the best deals available all year for a limited time. But is this actually the case? Are you truly getting a good deal, or are Black Friday offers not what they seem?

Only one in seven deals on Black Friday offer a genuine discount according to Which? Research, with the vast majority of offers being available at the same or lower price in the 6 months leading up to the sale. Out of the deals analysed, 98% were cheaper or the same price at other times in the year, and not a single one was cheaper on Black Friday alone. This data suggests that the reason Black Friday enjoys so much success is not the offers, but rather the aggressive marketing campaigns that go with them. 

Inflate the price, then provide a ‘discount'

Businesses utilise a number of different strategies in order to maximise profits from Black Friday, but one of the most popular and deceptive comes in the form of artificially inflating prices a few weeks before Black Friday, before bringing them back down to around their original price framed as a discount. Numerous major e-commerce retailers have used this strategy, with reports that pricing for a select number of their beauty products was increased as much as 28% before being ‘discounted’ again in the Black Friday sale. A slightly different version of this tactic is commonly used by technology retailers, in which they will delay the price rollback of stock until after Black Friday, giving the illusion of a limited time offer being larger than it truly is.

80% off a plug, 10% off everything else

Another popular practice can be found in misleading sales. Around this time of year, it becomes more common to see big flashy advertisements promoting a huge sale.  It is easy to be drawn in by the number front and centre, but the real point of focus should be the small print above - ‘up to’. This strategy involves applying large discounts to a very limited number of products to entice customers, but providing a minor discount, if any at all, to the vast majority of products. This tactic has been a popular one for a long time now, but consumers have started growing wary of these immense discounts that seem too good to be true.

Extremely Limited Stock

This is almost an extension of the above tactic but is arguably more effective at enticing customers to a website or store. It involves advertising a desirable product at an incredibly discounted price, but only in very  limited quantities. The goal is to drive people to the website with the initial deal and then hope to entice them with another item oin the store.

So how am I supposed to find a good offer?

When taking all these different tactics into account, Black Friday can begin to look more like a confusing customer trap rather than an opportunity for a great offer. This is before taking into account that businesses will often combine a number of these strategies together, making it even more difficult to understand what you are truly being offered.

If you want to be certain that you are getting a good offer from a Black Friday deal, then it can feel as if you need to do extensive research, cross reference prices across websites, maybe even track prices for weeks leading up to the so-called offer. Alternatively, you can just visit the Techbuyer website. 

At Techbuyer, we don’t believe in Black Friday pricing or misleading sales. We aim to offer market leading value all year round, ensuring our IT solutions fit the needs of each individual customer, as well as providing product life extension that fuels the circular IT economy rather than overprovisioning or filling landfill sites.

We offer a full range of circular IT solutions, including refurbished hardware, offering performance that can match new hardware, for a quarter of the price, as well as e-waste disposal services to ensure your redundant IT is recycled responsibly.

You can learn more about why we think Black Friday is rubbish here.