Black Friday 2022

Black Friday is a kick in the teeth for small businesses. Huge tax-avoiding companies promote the day stating heavily discounted stock, leading you to believe you are getting a deal. This undercuts small businesses and takes away sales that could have been made with small independents. Small businesses advertising Black Friday deals are falling into the trap, so please don’t compete with big institutions. Independents simply cannot compete with such low prices. I believe in my product and have worked hard to build the brand. I refuse to conform and reduce my prices to compete.

I cannot pretend that this fad has ever appealed to me. The shocking scenes of greed, stampedes and elbow-bashing are anathema to me. If I decide to purchase an item, I will do so if it is at a price I deem reasonable. If it is not reasonable, I evidently don't need it. Dropping the price as a "Black Friday deal" just tells me that's the price point you probably ought to be selling at anyway. As a small business, I get asked if I will have Black Friday deals and my answer is always "no". Not only am I not American, my prices are always fair. I do not feel the need to artificially inflate them for eleven months of the year to "slash" them for one. And that goes the same for any of the 'sales' options, namely Christmas, end of season and the January sales. None of these affect my prices, or my purchase decisions.

If a business is offering huge discounts and still making a profit, are you really getting a bargain? Small, independent, businesses offer value and outstanding customer service all year round. They pay fair taxes, employ local people and pay directly into your local economy. So I urge customers to to bear all this in mind this Black Friday. Where you spend your money matters more than ever in the current economic climate.

Black Friday is a necessary evil as a small retail business. I begrudgingly embraced it for the first time last year and decided to overlook the margin hit for the quick cash injection. Given the snail's pace of business this year I have no choice but to do it again. It’s a delicate balance between not alienating your existing customers and offering bargains for mass appeal. It’s tough.

Black Friday is a vulgar orgy of consumerism.

I want to hate Black Friday, and I do in a way. I hate the version of it that just involves stampedes of people flocking to huge retail giants who are selling off substandard electronics at slightly less inflated prices than usual. But I cannot argue with the fact that for several years running it has been the strongest sales weekend of the year for my small business. Last year, I made more during that weekend than the entire of the previous month. So instead of shunning it, I try to embrace it and shout about shopping small rather than lining the pockets of the big stores. This year I'm adopting a 'spend more, save more' discounting approach in the hope of harnessing some of the huge spending potential associated with this weekend. I feel that ignoring Black Friday weekend when the future of my business depends on a good last quarter would quite frankly be foolish.

Whether you love it or hate it, Black Friday is routinely expected by consumers, and so retailers have to acquiesce. It can be a great opportunity to offload ‘this season’s’ product lines to pave the way for next season’s lines, or to reduce stockholding in slow moving products (affectionately dubbed SLOBs in the industry). So whatever your ideological stance on this American import, you need to lean into it and make it work in your favour.

When we grow up, we stop believing in Father Christmas. We should also stop believing in Black Friday. Which? even did an investigation that found that 98% of the 'deals' are not special at all and that the prices were readily available at other times in the year. Now more than ever, we should try to practice more conscious consumerism. To save money, buy less stuff not more fake deals. But for the things that you do buy, see if you can find a higher quality, locally made alternative. It could be better for you and for the economy.

As a business and a consumer I don't do Black Friday. It goes against all my values. Money is tight for all of us this year. We really need a good Christmas season sales wise but I still won't get involved in Black Friday. At Smallkind we do 'Give Back Friday' instead and donate 10% from all sales to a local bed poverty charity Zarach Leeds who deliver beds and basics to families who can't afford them. This feels like a far better use of our money than offering customers a 10% discount and our community always get behind it. Price slashing and over-consumption are my main issues with Black Friday. Both just promote over buying and are detrimental to small brands. By joining in we'd just be part of the problem. However, I do understand why lots of small businesses feel they need to drop prices, especially this year when people are struggling to stay afloat.Many Black Friday 'bargains' are cheaply and unethically made especially for this crazy event and are bought on impulse only to end up in landfill when they fall apart. It's so easy to overspend on a 'haul' of cheap products that you don't need. This kind of consumerism is not good for the planet or our pockets but even the most conscious shopper can get swept away by it. Big companies can only afford to slash prices because they make 'fast' products using low paid labour and unsustainable materials. Small businesses and sustainable brands can't compete with this and it skews perception of the value of products that are made fairly and made to last. Our anti-Black Friday posts on social media always get lots of comments and shares so there is a growing community of people who boycott Black Friday and everything is represents. It's great to see that a mindset shift is slowly happening.

Ooh lets buy all the s*it retailers can't get rid of, inflate the cost of it then reduce it, sounds like a bargain... No thanks....

Instead of following along with the mass consumerism encouraged by Black Friday, we should all support small independents businesses through initiatives like #ColourFriday and pledge to spend mindfully this Christmas. Buying a thoughtful gift from a small indie brand that has been made with love and care will be way more meaningful to the lucky recipient than something bought in the haste of Black Friday Fever. It comes with the added bonus of helping that small brand to navigate these very stormy economic seas.