The Myth of Black Friday and Holiday Deals Needs to Stop

Have you finished your holiday shopping this year? Did you take advantage of the amazing Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals we have been hearing so much about? Well, according to Wirecutter magazine, 99% of the advertised deals are not much of a deal at all. I happened to see a video of a Houston area Walmart where a brawl erupted between two customers going after a new T.V. How good was this deal they were fighting over? In an article from Forbes magazine, big name retailers like Walmart and Sears inflate regular prices of items in order to advertise larger discounts. One deal listed a Samsung 1080p T.V for a discounted $599.99 down from a regular price of $1,199.99. However, the same exact T.V was listed in their store $807.49 earlier this year.

A similar situation unfolded at Macy’s where the popular Breville toaster was listed for $280 and advertised a major discount down from $417. This same exact appliance was listed on Amazon. Priced at $250, it was not part of a sale but had been listed at that price for months. Does Macy’s think that customers just won’t compare deals? Or are they banking on the fact that their deal will be more appealing at a store which people know for appliances? The truth is they are hoping to get lucky.

Let’s say you saw saw a pair of headphones a relative wanted, and it was listed for 50% off, wouldn’t you jump at it immediately? If the price three weeks ago was $100, the retailer could list the regular price as $200. On Black Friday, you would pay the same price as before. This example may seem like an extreme, but it is not far from the truth in some cases.

Part of what makes these discounts so large is the difference from their “regular” price. I listed regular price in quotations marks because there is no definition to that term.  The Breville toaster from Macy’s never actually sold for $417 but according to Julie Strider Fukami, a spokeswoman for Macy’s, these prices can be determined from “different factors, including the cost of the item, overhead, benefits we offer… as well as our ability to offer the item at a lower price.” “Regular” price functions as whatever the retailer decides it to be.

We are stuck in a sort of tug of war between consumers being deal obsessed and retailers wanting to supply them with deals by any means possible. There needs to be more transparency from retailers on what their regular price actually is. Not a fluffed up ballpark number so customers think they have found the needle-in-the-haystack deal this year.