Everyone seems to have jumped on the Black Friday band wagon and most of my 27 out of 47 emails this morning had the words in their subject box. I wonder how many of these were actually genuine decent savings or what is more likely cons? But hey mention Black Friday and we will all jump at these offers right? Not me.
Is it somehow related to black Monday... Nah I get it. Only I don't - it seems a fantastic way to move old stock, clearing space and making less or no profit to do so, just turning stuff over. However, it seems to be mostly on the newest and best gadgets that some good deals can be had. If as a business you can afford to turn over at that cost anyway, why not simply do so all the time? Profit per unit will be down, but you'll be shifting a butt load more to compensate for or even exceed your lower turn-over higher markup units...
I always get this response when I ask that question: Because some people will pay the higher price the rest of the year.
I got an email from gearbest titled 'Black Friday Matters' Had to giggle at the utter lack of cultural awareness with that line.
If it's any consolation, after 2014's debacle (and violence against staff) ASDA hasn't done anything for Black Friday two years running. Even frickin' Walmart is sick of it.
Had to go PC World with my Dad to exchange a faulty tablet, was surprised it was a case of doing a straight swap - no need to send it away for repair, we left with a new boxed item. That being said what I was stunned by was the amount of people in the store looking to get a deal on something which really is in my eyes a mickey mouse discount at best. I haven't paid any attention to any of the so called "Black Friday" deals as there isn't anything that really interests me or worst of all there is nothing that I currently need that I can't get online at reasonable prices anyway.
Black Friday in the USA was a con just to get people in the store. They would offer like three TVs per store, one laptop etc. It's just more American bile that we are buying into. I mean FFS I even saw a news article the other day saying brits were now celebrating Thanksgiving. OK so now I have cleared my moan meter I actually did really well last BF. Online of course. I bought a Sandisk 240gb SSD for £39.99 that wasn't repeated again and a phone for my lady (BLU Windows phone) for £30 instead of £99.99 (and I actually checked that before buying). So yeah, there are some good deals on half decent stuff if you sit around all day on Amazon.
Most of the stuff is the gumph they bought cheap in bulk like that TV in Tesco the other year even lost their poo over. Me I did some quiet snipping an nabbed a set of end of line carbon bike wheels down from EOL 240 to 168. Bar that naff all.
You can get good deals if you keep an eye out, got a heavily discounted set of RAM and a Power Supply last year from Scan/Ebuyer, on time for a relatives Christmas build. Currently Amazon has 8GB of crucial DDR3L for £20, GTX 1060 6GB for £194, Dishonored 2 going for £24 and Scan has apparently had a few good deals today. For the most part the deals are not great though, as Behemoth said, only if you want or need it, otherwise people just end up buying junk at a very slight discount that otherwise they would have never bought in the first place.
I don't mind it for online retail tbh. Most of the time you won't get crazy discounts, but retailers will often put items down to their usual sale prices. I find that handy as it means you don't need to buy one item in August, another in October etc. to take advantage of the promotional prices. I do appreciate retailers that also decide to do blanket sales, like 10% off all stock for the period. Not many do this, so it's nice when you do come across one. Tempted by some airbrush kit atm as I need to replace some broken stuff, 10% off everything means I can add a couple accessories too.
Black Friday news:- An off-duty cop has been stabbed for attempting to apprehend a Black Friday shoplifter in Leeds HMV. Quidco has had a T.I.T.S.U.P.* as The Register politely refers to it (* Total Inability To Support Usual Performance)
Just noticed that Amazon have their Fire stick on sale for around a tenner less than I paid a fortnight ago so I thought I would see if I could get a rebate but the Asian customer service rep was having none of it and it would cost 4 quid to return so note to self. Do not buy from Amazon in November until the Black Friday sale.
One thing rarely mentioned about the Black Friday sales or Christmas in the news is the poor delivery drivers, they're going to be exploited to the hilt, overworked, underpaid and treated like crap delivering useless crap to people, and cue moans and complaints mashed down onto the online reviews and etc. Comedy Central is doing the three-part Black Friday South Park shows tonight and I have seen them before but always worth watching again.
I have succumbed to the bumfight Superbowl. BF1 and The Body Shop's excellent Maca Root shaving soap are now mine. #BigSpender
Thought amazons black Friday was rubbish this year, really didn't like the whole two week thing and the lightning deals seemed to be hidden in with normal sale stuff.
I looked, I looked again, I found sod all of any interest this year. As a friend of mine used to say, "It's a bag of w@nk".
