Black Friday has to be one of the most exciting holiday traditions. Stores present doorbuster deals for consumers to get them hoarding in line before they open, with the promise of exclusive deals on items that are only seen that day after Thanksgiving. Exciting? Sure, but it is a tradition that has slowly been on the decline, and it is not from one reason, but many attributing factors.
The consumer tradition is known for deals on high-end electronics, from price cuts on flat-screen TVs to next-gen game consoles and computer accessories. Such products being in huge demand is no exception this year. This leaves retailers facing troublesome problems with shortages and supply chain crises.
Parts specific to products like the PS5 and Xbox Series X, as well as graphics cards for PCs, have been in a shortage throughout this year in particular. This is primarily due to the lack of supply by the manufacturers, and it isn’t the main problem regarding this year’s Black Friday.
All retailers (in fact, all businesses) have been facing massive delays in receiving any type of product due to the crisis with the supply chains overseas, as well as shipping delays from the suppliers. This leaves retailers with very little products to put out, leaving customers unsatisfied and unable to fulfill the wish lists they have.
Consumer Marketing Expert, Dan Halley, explains it best in an interview with Yahoo regarding “what to buy and what to avoid” on Black Friday by briefly stating, “Just go get it.” He explains that due to the supply issues playing a role in retail this year that people really shouldn’t rely on Black Friday for any good deals. Halley goes on to explain, “When Black Friday, Cyber Monday rolls around, you don’t know if there’s going to be deals on [desired product], number one, and number two, if there will be enough [product] to go around.”
Pertaining to being early, that is another key element to the decline of Black Friday: the doorbusters. Doorbusters are undoubtedly an excellent incentive in having consumers swinging by to see what appealing deals catch their eye.
As exciting as these doorbuster deals are, retailers have been making these set deals available earlier and earlier than usual for the past few years. Places like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy, to name a few, have started these deals early from either a day, a week, to even this year, making the deals available the first week of November. This marketing decision puts the excitement towards Black Friday on the decline for consumer interest.
“I would say that ‘doorbuster’ deals being spread out over time have made the hype come down,” comments Hunter Murphy, a consumer of Best Buy, who gives out his opinion on this marketing ploy retailers like Best Buy go out of their way to do. Murphy explains in another comment how he had “grown up with the excitement of finding deals in person and walking out with the satisfaction,” and since doorbuster deals are much more spread out, it makes in person shopping the day of Black Friday “a much calmer experience.”
It’s surely not dated, but rather evolving before our eyes. Lisa Marsh, who’s been an avid consumer on Black Friday for the past decade, has seen the changes throughout the years when she’s out trying to secure deals the day of. Marsh mentions how online shopping on “Cyber Monday” is much more convenient for people nowadays than waiting in the early morning on Black Friday. “Adding the ongoing pandemic, stores have been able to adapt and have turned to marketing their deals online rather than in-person shopping, a convenience to many,” Marsh states while commenting how Black Friday became “much more subtle.”
Camping outside of retail stores, snagging insanely cheap products, and having adrenaline pumping through your veins on Black Friday doesn’t have the same appeal as it used to. This atmosphere we associate with this day would be quite far fetched if we were to see interest resurge.
However, it seems unlikely that we will see the tradition’s hype return to where it once was. This is due to many factors, the main ones being the COVID-19 pandemic, and with it, the rising popularity of Cyber Monday. Other factors also include retailers doing early doorbuster deals days or even weeks before Black Friday. Though it is possible to resurrect this consumer tradition, it would definitely be a far cry from what it once was.
