A week after Black Friday, shoppers are still thinking about the deals they got and the new things they will be gifting themselves and others for the holidays. However I have noticed some changes in the shopping and deals in the past couple of years.
Before online shopping got to be as big as it was, there were people standing outside retailers all through the night waiting for the doors to open. You would see news stories about people getting hurt and fights breaking out over supplies. But those kinds of things are starting to be less seen. As for the violent aspect of the shopping, it’s probably good that the number of shoppers and angry people has gone down. However, it seems as though the tradition of the day is starting to dwindle.
This year the earliest Black Friday deal was on November 1st, twenty three days before Black Friday was actually occurring. This takes the surprise out of the deals and the excitement for finding a product for a cheaper price.
However this year I noticed that a lot of the deals weren’t as good as most years. At Target the Black Friday deals were the same as the normal deals are, they just switched the signs around. At Barnes and Noble, members got more points on their cards but there weren’t many deals on products. And you didn’t get money off unless you had a lot of previous points added up.
Most deals are online now and they last for several weeks. The deals online are typically larger than those in stores. These kinds of deals also offer the ease of not having to leave your house to get the things you want. The added bonus of the deals going through the weekend and into Cyber Monday keeps people shopping.
I believe that the idea of Black Friday is not the same as it once was which takes the fun out of the day. If we were to start Black Friday on the day that it is named after, it would add the surprise back into the day. And we should start going back into stores when we can.
