While believing that they are paying far less for high-end consumer products, shoppers who throw themselves on the altar of Black Friday madness today will in the aggregate be paying more for such items than they would at other times of the year.
As Bloomberg Businessweek reports, despite the hype, despite the coupons, despite the “friends and family deals,” the profit margins of large retailers are actually higher during the holiday period. The idea that big stores are losing out in order to provide Americans with massively discounted goods is a complete hoax.
“How come retailers are able to make such drastic reductions and not have to give the store away too?” asks Made.com boss Ning Lee. The answer; “Mark-ups. And high ones at that.”
Innumerable anecdotal stories about items receiving huge mark ups shortly before black Friday were shared by both shoppers and employees on a Reddit sub forum earlier today.
The same products can routinely be found for cheaper in January anyway with no need to camp out or get involved in mini-riots or mass brawls. However, absent the same level of psychotic hype, the flames of which are dutifully fanned by the mainstream media, the demand is far less intense.
The shameful scenes we see every year of Americans brawling with each other over HD televisions are an illustration of mass mind control, with retailers manufacturing the illusion of artificial scarcity of products at cheap prices in order to create a contrived stampede.
However, given the institutionalized grip of this hoax, it’s unlikely Americans are ever going to realize that they are suckers for perhaps the biggest con in retail history.
Greed is always UGLY. One thing that surprised me, was the amount of grown men fighting over anything and everything. I thought it was a female thing shopping on black Friday. Guess smart girls bring muscle.