Black Friday

From a marketing perspective, one of the most fascinating days of the year for a Norwegian in the US is undoubtedly Black Friday. For so many reasons. The physical strength used to reach those on-sale PS4’s, the time people are willing to spend outside closed malls and, in general, the length people are willing to go to get the best offers. In good student-spirit, I did the same last year and found it fascinating and fun to be a part of a ‘community’ of shoppers running down gates at 6 am in the morning. This year, I will be trying a different approach.

This year, instead of waiting in long lines and making an effort to do my purchases, I will let the retailers and offers come to me. So I signed up for a couple of Newsletters, and I was not disappointed. It doesn’t seem like black Friday is a day at all, but rather a long celebration of capitalistic gains from customers thinking they are “saving” money on things they otherwise wouldn’t buy. Already last Monday I encountered the first emails from e-commerce players offering me ‘pre-black Friday’-sales, followed by this week's‘ black Friday week’-sales. eCommerce really knows how to get the most out of the consumer, and I have to admit I have done some purchases already with a constant flow of compelling e-mails and offers personalized for me. Those e-mails are hard to say no to.

But I am wondering how they are going to expand this period next? Will there be a full ‘black Friday month’, or a ‘Cyber Monday’ week? Who knows what modern-day retailers will start with, but getting all of these e-mails, while I count them as spam as they come three times a day, is going to be an expensive affair in the length. I still look forward to what the future will hold for discounts.