Inflated prices across stores nationwide made this year’s Black Friday the most anticipated “holiday” of the season.
According to Adobe Analytics, online spending on Black Friday this year reached almost 10- Billion dollars. That’s up more than seven percent from last year.
Jonathan Aronson, teaches International Relations and Communication at USC. He says the heavy spending of this most recent Black Friday is due to several reasons.
JONATHAN ARONSON: So the economy is much stronger than was predicted. Black Friday was very strong. What people are doing is looking for deals. So they hold off until they get a better sale.
Lorena Gomez is holding off. She’s a regular Black Friday shopper who this year, didn’t believe that the advertised discounts lived up to her expectations.
LORENA GOMEZ: You get this like, propaganda of like, Oh yeah, it’s like you’re saving so much money. And that’s really what we want, especially in this economy, how everything’s higher up in prices.
She might be right. In a viral TikTok video posted by @djdownerygirl, the tags on Target’s Black Friday deals are pulled out of their placards to reveal that the discount prices are actually the same as the original prices.
Lorena Gomez comments on the potential scams that were present when shopping on this Black Friday.
LORENA GOMEZ: Everything’s getting a little more expensive. So it’s like, Oh, I’m going to save here. But if those is the original price, it’s just like, what the why did I even buy you that? And, and am I actually saving money?
Yet, Professor Aronson explains that deal or no deal, future Black Friday sales will remain untouched.
JONATHAN ARONSON: I suspect it will continue to be strong. There’s no reason not people have and Americans hav e confounded expectations by continuing to buy even as they complain about the economy.
He could be right as the Black Friday magic has moved from inside stores to inside everyone’s home, here’s grad student Jennifer Heine.
JENNIFER HEINE: I only went online, so I don’t know if that’s technically Black Friday or Cyber Monday, but they’ve all sort of bled into each other at this point, right? You can just stay in your pajamas and buy Christmas gifts from your couch.
From my couch to yours,
For Annenberg Media, I’m Solana Espino.