Lexi Westenberger
Mr. Reuter
Economics A4
30 October, 2017
Shopaholic Season
A shopper’s favorite time of year is fast approaching with Thanksgiving, but more importantly black friday, around the corner. Black friday is the famously known day after Thanksgiving where stores have extreme sales starting in the midst of the night, plaguing the area with shoppers. More times often than not, dedicated consumers will risk time with family and stay up all night scavenging stores and hunting down the perfect gifts to give for Christmas. The biggest positive externality is the amount of goods that are available at such a low price. Overall, black friday is a benefit towards the economy.
Every year each store aims to collect more customers than the one next door. Whether the stores are digging deeper for sales or extending the store hours, the competition is always relevant. With an improved economy consumers with a lower income would be able to boost their spendings during black friday. This helps prove that the consumer spending spending category makes up 70% of the US economy. Although, even if there weren’t as many black friday spending splurges, it would show a still growing economy as consumers don’t feel as though they need the tremendous sales to make purchases (Peralta). The chart below helps to display that the economy is continuously improving, with customers shopping more at times when desperate sales are not available.
The methods people undergo to obtain the goods and services on black friday are perpetually insane. Year after year stories are published about injuries, and in extreme cases death, quite a negative externality if you ask me. What are the motives behind these absurd actions? One would expect that since the demand is always existent the price would raise; however, this higher price is omitted and replaced by a low price that the consumers craze after. The key is that the larger department stores and large chain corporations are willing to accept a lower price for the items that they may have a surplus of. This is because black friday is a great way to compose a list of new shoppers at the stores with the best sales (Grage).
Black friday shopping requires a large amount of self control. This is because once the “door buster” sales begin and the shopper spots an item they had on the list, there is no end. The amount of sales are endless and each item picked up is just more cash spent. Eventually the shopper will spend a normal amount of money and the amount that they thought was being saved is just becoming a considerable amount of store earnings.
This same thing happens on “cyber monday” as well. Although, as my relatives have been cutting out black friday coupons from the newspaper for as long as I can remember, cyber monday has just become popular within the last few years when online shopping arose in popularity. Just because there are no physical actions against other shoppers on cyber Monday does not mean that there are no negative externalities, there are just no deaths or most likely no injuries involved.
Thus, overall the outcome of black friday and cyber monday are positive results for our economy. Whether shoppers choose to go out on black friday or not, signs of a strong economy are shown. Black friday is always a crazy holiday that gets everyone riled up and ready for Christmas!
Works Cited
CNBC . “Chart of the Day: Why Black Friday matters.” CNBC, CNBC, 29 Nov. 2013.
Grage, Andrew. “A Lesson on Black Friday: Supply & Demand.” LinkedIn, LinkedIn, 25 Nov. 2014.
Peralta, Katherine. “Black Friday Shopping May Show Improving Economy.” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, 27 Nov. 2014.
I strategically chose this blog article to read, as Black Friday is something I tend to take part in. After Thanksgiving with my family, I always look forward to Black Friday shopping. With that being said, I agree with your statement that the biggest positive externality is the amount of goods that are available at such a low price and that black Friday is a benefit towards the economy. However, I would think that the stores are competing against themselves to get the most customers and most profit gain from Black Friday, not competing against the stores next to them. This is because the stores are selling either different products, identical or differentiated products causing them to compete against just themselves to be successful.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to me that such a crazy day after Thanksgiving has become such a norm and an expectation every year. The amount of people who camp out waiting all night for sales immediately after being thankful for what they have the day before is hard for me to understand. It makes sense that Black Friday would boost the economy because of all of the shoppers and high demand for products. This is a very interesting topic and although I knew that this day benefited many people, it was cool to learn that it also benefits the economy.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Black Friday seems to be much bigger deal know than it has in the past, with deals starting as early as Thanksgiving morning. People are so focused on rushing to the store to get the best deals and they don't even pay attention to the holiday. It's no surprise that store's sales are highest on Black Friday, since there are so many deals. The demand for certain products is already so much higher during the holiday season because of Christmas shopping so companies have sales to get even more people to buy their products.
DeleteI love Black Friday because I am kind of a shopping addict and I love getting up super early or staying out super late. It's so much more fun than normal shopping because it seems like such a big event and I save a little money while I'm doing it. Am I really saving money? I wonder if people end up buying and spending more than they normally would just because they think they are saving money. Would some people even go out shopping at all if the deals weren't advertised constantly? Also, I think that some of the deals in the past years I've gone have been pretty disappointing. I noticed that I have gotten better deals when the store itself is having a sale for example their holiday sales or "fall" sale. Is it the whole idea of Black Friday that brings in the increase in demand? Or is it the deals themselves?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nicole that the sales these past years have been a little disappointing, but for some people, including myself, just go out on Black Friday because it gives us a chance to go out and shop without feeling bad about emptying our pockets. It is kind of hypocritical to go out shopping right after the holiday where everyone gives thanks for what they already have, but when you think about all the parents that go out on black Friday to buy their kids Christmas gifts at a lower price it makes sense, especially for those lower income families that need to make every penny count. Overall, I'm glad you chose this topic because it's very relevant to the start of the holiday season and a very opinionated discussion.
DeleteGoing off of what Nicole said also, I can personally attest to the fact that Black Friday is often a way to draw large masses of people in by the promise of good deals without actually delivering. My sister purchased the most items of anyone in my family last year. At the end of the day we asked who found the best deals and she said "I bought the most, so I got the best deals today." However, when we looked at the facts we saw that she only bought one item with a deal. Because people assume that Black Friday means everything on sale the demand for products greatly increases even though many products don't even change price.
DeleteI agree with what you said Lexi on how the economy is benefited by Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Many more people are out shopping, and tend to buy in bulk or more than normal due to the upcoming holiday season. I personally love Black Friday and get all my gifts then. For as long as I remember my family has gone Black Friday, and it's part of our Thanksgiving tradition. It would be interesting to see how Cyber Monday has affected Black Friday sales and profits. I agree with Nicole's point that maybe we buy more on Black Friday so it's not a deal.
DeleteBlack Friday is definitely good for the struggling brick-and-mortar retail stores out there. They get an influx of new customers who may find they like the store and return after Black Friday instead of shopping online. Online stores are slowly overtaking brick-and-mortar stores and that hurts the economy because brick-and-mortar stores are prominent employers in the economy and if they fall to the less-employing online stores, there will be a growing amount of unemployed people.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting and relevant topic especially since it's November now. Also, it's amazing how well this shopping season boosts the economy as a whole. Since there are so many economic benefits from the Thanksgiving and Black Friday season, stores must invest most of their advertising into this season compared to other seasons.
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ReplyDeleteIt seems as though the difference in black Friday deals compared to a normal clearance sale is starting to become indistinguishable from one another. Now that November has begun, I feel as though the constant sale advertisements generating hype for black Friday pressure the consumer to spend their hard earned money now because this deal won't be around later. This is almost never the case. Other than the sales that have a very limited supply, most black Friday deals never actually sell out, resulting in another sale that takes of even more money.
ReplyDeleteInteresting topic! I completely agree with you that there are both positive and negative externalities to Black Friday, depending on how you look at it. For example, the crazy day brings mostly positive externalities to the economy, with the low-priced goods and insane number of shoppers that don't usually shop at these stores. However, negative externalities rely mainly in the "morals" side of the situation. Plenty argue that Black Friday ruins the joy of Thanksgiving, a holiday about spending time with family and being thankful for all that you have. I think Black Friday is great for our economy, but also quite contreversial.
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