Enthusiastic online-shoppers couldn’t resist enticing deals this Black Friday. According to Adobe Analytics, Black Friday sales saw a record $9.12 billion from online holiday-giddy consumers compared to the previous year’s $8.92 billion.
Thanksgiving in the U.S. was followed by a spending spree on Black Friday and Cyber Monday despite an increase in inflation from last November.
“Often in inflationary times, people try to buy as quickly as they can, knowing that things will be more expensive later on,” Lans Perner, associate professor of clinical marketing at USC’s Marshall School of Business, said.
In recent years, even pre-pandemic, Americans have shifted to online shopping. A 2022 study found that almost 80% of American consumers prefer to shop online.
Some students believe that Black Friday’s sales period is their one time to buy things they have always wanted.
“I generally know what kind of things I’m looking for. This year it was sweaters,” Kira Liljegran, a junior double majoring in international relations and theater, said.
For some people, shopping during Thanksgiving is an economic decision. For others, tradition drives their spending.
“Black Friday is tradition, it’s as big of a deal to us as Thanksgiving. It’s something we [as a family] do every year,” Sarra Hussien, a junior majoring in psychology and political science, said. “I don’t think there has been a year where we have not participated in Black Friday shopping. We look forward to it every year.”
According to Perner, online shopping is rising, especially around holidays when it is convenient to get many things at once. “You can hit a lot more places,” he said.
Consequently, a whopping $11.2 billion was spent on Cyber Monday alone. Data released by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics projected around 166.3 million Americans rushing to get a bite of the deals available from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday.
In economics, the law of supply and demand states that when there is an increase in demand, the price for the demanded good goes up and vice versa. However, Perner points out that during the holiday season, especially Thanksgiving, an opposite of this phenomenon is observed.
“When people are looking to buy a lot of gifts – rather than raising prices, the merchants actually compete to put on massive sales,” Perner, a bargain-hunting enthusiast himself, said.
“I remember one year our neighbor bought four TV’s for $50 each,” Hussien said. But again, the reasons for the Black Friday shopping-binge vary. For some, it’s convenient and cheap; for others, it’s all about tradition that captures the essence of Thanksgiving.
“You need to be careful and not get too carried away with deals,” Perner said. He gave this warning as a victim himself of a too-good-to-lose bargain during his time as a PhD candidate at USC, when he bought two huge pillows. “I realized, ‘well, I don’t really need two new pillows.’”