😡 What do you HATE about sales season

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but today (at the time of writing) is Black Friday. I’m being a little facetious here, I for one have seen a bombardment of advertising in a variety of formats, so if you’ve avoided it, well done.


I've seen a lot of comments over the past week about the mixed emotions involved about this occasion, which was born in the USA. As I've [mentioned previously](https://choice.community/t/black-friday-cyber-monday-and-sale-ends-soon-shopping-tips/19282/7?u=brendanmays), this alone tends to generate mixed emotions due to our own connotations.

From the point of view of working at an organisation responsible for a vast array of expert led, science focused product testing, Black Friday tends to make us nervous. Rather than choosing the ‘best’ product for their need, the concern is that people will adjust purchasing habits to take advantage of a special, but end up with a poorer quality item in the long run (or an item that doesn’t make the long run).

It’s a bit of a retailer frenzy, timed perfectly to capture Christmas shoppers midst wish list. It raises other, bigger points about our relationships with products and consumerism. Recently, this has given rise to concepts such as Green Friday.

We haven’t even got to the part about overcrowded shopping centres yet either.

However, I’ll stop there because I’d like to hand it over to the CHOICE Community. This is your chance to vent about all the things you HATE about the sales season (we can include Boxing Day if you like).

Conversely, you might be thinking, it’s not all bad. And in that case, the yang to this yin can be found here - in this thread about what you love about the sales.

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Im fed up with it all constant advert. I wonder if they are just selling junk. Anyway how come if people are money tight can they afford to buy more.

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We mostly only purchase something when it is genuinely needed. There are always one or two items on the nice to have one day list. If an item is on sale at the time we set out to make a purchase all the better. More by accident considering most retail options are typically 25-50km travel each way.

Is there anything to hate about sales season. Only if you can’t defer a purchase to avoid it.

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It just encourages consumerism or purchasing items one doesn’t really need, because they are on ‘sale’.

I avoid them like the plague.

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I hate shopping when the ‘big sales’ are on, because:

  • who knows what’s wrong with that white good on sale at half price.
  • everything is tightly packed, need to rummage to find size.
  • items which were obviously overlooked for years get to go on display.
  • items which are of unpopular sizes (like a size 6 or a size 24 dress) or of an unpopular colour (pea green bath towels) go on sale.
  • have to struggle to get near items because of the many people crowding and elbowing.
  • long queues at the fitting rooms, even longer ones at the cashiers.
  • circle the car park for hours and fight for a car space.
  • nowhere to sit and rest.
  • etc etc etc

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Mosaic Brands! :rage:
I have received Black Friday adverts over the last two weeks:
SMS (each number blocked) - 28
E-mail - 94 - most from Autograph Fashion

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Yep. I’m with you. What I hate about Black Friday is the name. Totally inappropriate for Australia. Almost disrespectful to the many who lost their lives and the massive property damage - and drawing attention to the many, more recent major bushfires that Australia has experienced. I get it that the name has just been imported from the US. Surely we can come up with our own name for it e.g. Super Sale Friday or e.g. Super Friday.

Me too. I have been tempted to put in a mail handling rule that just outright rejects as spam any email that has “black friday” in its subject. Maybe next year I will 


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You’ve got my vote.
I can vaguely remember “Pre-Christmas Sales” and get in early slogans way back. Not all retail sectors and perhaps a little random. Is my memory not quite reliable on that one?

It could be ‘Super Friday’,
or ‘Kangaroo Friday’ where the retailers promise to kick back to you the customer heavy discounts as they forgo their margins. All in the spirit of giving for Christmas.

The more “corn” in the marketing concept the greater the capture - supposedly? The one fact about successful marketing is to exclude as much fact as possible. :joy:

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The adverts are enough to drive anyone crazy. Cannot believe some replay same ad 2 times maybe someone forgot to stop replay. I always wonder if they are, selling things can’t be sold. I would be interested if people who want to return goods in this sales period imagine excuses given out if returns were warranted. I could believe shops saying no refund. Interested if one buys disused or floor stock warranty returns still able if fails.

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What is all the hooha about Black Friday - yesterday was not Friday 13th and I have to idea why we have to follow the US and have these ridiculous sales for no reason at all. It’s just a grab for peoples’ money! And now they’ve got something else stupid - Cyber Monday - so what’s so special???

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In some ways the US Black Friday is the equivalent of our Boxing Day sales.

The day after Thanksgiving day vs the day after Christmas day.

I avoid both with a passion.

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I hate the constant stream of sms and email messages about the sales. I find it overwhelming and avoid the shops completely. If I need to buy something, I will do my own searching for a good price after consulting the Choice site to see which items are recommended.

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Harvey Norman gets a lot of stick in this forum but, to their credit, they are going with Big Friday: https://www.harveynorman.com.au/big-friday

It’s not only in Australia that “Black Friday” is a terrible name: Black Friday - Wikipedia (particularly the section on “Single days”).

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Or we could go with Cyber Friday. In the Land of the Long Weekend, what could be better than a whole long weekend of Cyber Sales? :wink:

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Cyber conversion? :scream:
I’m already having nightmares.

If it were ONLY 1 day, the Friday and that’s it! People who are struggling with cost of living and rising interest rates going for “bargains” they are putting on pay later schemes or credit so close to Xmas. I avoid the shops as it is too tempting to buy what I don’t need because it is ‘a deal’.

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I am rather disappointed in the tenor of many of the comments made about the “sales” season. It almost sounds politically motivated. When I see a sales catalogue or pass a store that advertises a sale, I simply look to see if there any items I have been thinking about buying soon, or are among my current needs, or would be good to put away for a future birthday or Christmas present, are on sale at a genuinely reduced price.
If so, I may buy it.
This, in fact, is exactly what my wife and I did in this year’s Christmas shopping for the family, and for each other. By examining sales, in store and online, we obtained many products we wanted at considerably reduced prices.
For example, I needed some smart plugs to control my Christmas lights. The brand and unit I wanted were on sale a very reduced sales price, so I stocked up.
I can’t see why some people are making this into some sort of conspiracy theory or “evil” capitalist plot. Just use your common sense and stop the anti American hysteria and, who knows, you might save some money.

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There are reasons to like and reasons not to like. Possibly why there is a second topic,

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So is the evil cabal the ones who organise the movement against these sales or the ones who organise the sales?

I doubt it is either. My reading is that many readers here shop selectively the way that you describe and get involved if there is something they want that looks good. Those people often stay well clear of the hustle and bustle of queuing at the door and rushing to get the bait before the switch, etc The two are not incompatible.

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But did you actually need that? :wink:

All good though. There are two topics 
 “what do you hate?” and “what do you love?” 
 and people are just freely expressing their opinions.