PHOTO: Black Friday 2022 shoppers at a mall in New Jersey.
On Black Saturday — my clever name for the day after Black Friday — the online search engines were ablaze with exciting news about the American economy.
U.S. Black Friday online sales hit record $9 billion despite high inflation
— Reuters
Black Friday Online Sales to Hit New Peak of $9 Billion
— The Daily Beast
Black Friday online sales top $9 billion in new record
— CNBC
Black Friday online sales to hit new record, expected to top $9 billion
— NBC News
But as we note, all of these headlines are talking about “online sales”. The articles also note that the popularity of online shopping has been greatly enhanced, lately, by “Buy-Now-Pay-Later” services like Afterpay, Affirm, Sezzle, PayPal, and Zip… as well as “Buy-Now-Pay-Later” arrangements offered by Amazon, Nordstrom, Free People, Target, Walmart, Old Navy…
…The list goes on. And on.
Americans didn’t actually spend $9 billion on online Black Friday purchases. They only promised to spend $9 billion . Later.
Nevertheless, $9 billion in online promises is certainly nothing to sneeze at.
But what about people actually leaving their homes to visit a store, where they can actually touch the product before they buy it? Where they can actually try the shoes on? Where the clerk knows them by name and attends the same church?
The way people used to shop?
A person interested in a more complete picture of the shopping event we all call ‘Black Friday’ had to search a little bit harder — past all the news reports of record online shopping — to eventually find a headline like this, on Page Three of the search results:
Shoppers Kick Off Holiday Season With a Muted Black Friday
— Time
Apparently, retail sales in brick-and-mortar stores were up about 3% over 2021 sales. That’s far less than the 8% rate of inflation since last year. Sales would need to be up 8% just to stay even.
But who would be that crazy, and spend 8% more than they spent last year on disposable junk? (Maybe me, if I can promise to pay for it later. Much later. When my money will be worth less anyway.)
The big question: Is our American love affair with shopping on the rocks? Just because prices are a measly 8% higher than last year?
And by “on the rocks”, I don’t mean, “served over ice”. Although that might also be an apt metaphor.
And meanwhile… let’s get rid of the whole “Friday” pretense, shall we?
Target kicked off its “pre-Black Friday” sales extravaganza on October 9. Every week through November 20, Target unleashed a new selection of deals to shoppers, in-store and online.
Best Buy started releasing Black Friday deals to shoppers in-store and online on October 24.
Home Depot’s Black Friday sale launched online on October 31, and hit its brick-and-mortar stores on November 3.
Walmart launched its first Black Friday ‘Deals for Days’ sale on November 7.
We’re no longer talking about “Black Friday”… or even “Black Weekend After Thanksgiving”. America is boldly headed for a fabulous consumer event known as “Black Entire Final Quarter of the Year with Sales Continuing into January and February”.
Heck, we might someday call it simply, “Black Year”.
Which might end up looking a lot like this:
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.