Study Suggests Black Friday Prices Are Not Always Genuine Bargains

Monday, December 2, 2019 - 14:23 by Paul Tissington

A long-term study conducted by Which revealed that although Black Friday is much touted for offering consumers great value for money thanks to the steep discounts available, in reality it may be less compellingly cost-effective than the marketing would suggest.

Analysts looked at product prices over the course of 12 months, with Black Friday of 2018 sitting right in the middle of this time period. It was discovered that 60 per cent of the 83 popular products included in the study were either available at the same discounted price at some other point before or after the sales event or were even cheaper at least once outside of the so-called cyber weekend.

A variety of top-tier retailers were scrutinised in the report, with consumers carrying out safe shopping online with Amazon or visiting the bricks and mortar stores of John Lewis more likely than not to encounter products on Black Friday which were discounted to the same degree during some other sales period.

This is partly a result of the fact that there has been a real change in the retail landscape in recent years, with the rise of online shopping meaning that retailers are required to discount products more frequently in order to draw the attention of consumers. As such, when Black Friday rolls around, offers are commonly found to be repeated, which is demonstrated in this study.

Consumers are surprisingly well informed on this topic, with around a third of those questioned saying that they did not think that Black Friday would always be able to net them the best deal. Plenty of coverage in the press and the ability to track and compare prices throughout the year make things much easier for shoppers than in an age before e-commerce.