Black Friday is a scam

There's plenty of internet out there about how Black Friday deals are basically the worst, especially on big-ticket items. Last night I was at the store until 11 P.M. unloading all the cheap Black Friday garbage that corporate is eager to unload on the public this year. My personal favorite is our returning door buster $60 tablet that's so cheaply made that it doesn't even have a real manufacturer's warranty. 

Because I want to be that fancy blogger who links to The Wall Street Journal, enjoy this link to The Wall Street Journal:

The Dirty Secret of Black Friday 'Discounts' 

Here's how it works, according to one industry consultant describing an actual sweater sold at a major retailer. A supplier sells the sweater to a retailer for roughly $14.50. The suggested retail price is $50, which gives the retailer a roughly 70% markup. A few sweaters sell at that price, but more sell at the first markdown of $44.99, and the bulk sell at the final discount price of $21.99. That produces an average unit retail price of $28 and gives the store about a 45% gross margin on the product.

Retailers didn't always price this way. It used to be that most items were sold at full price, with a limited number of sales to clear unsold inventory. That began to change in the 1970s and 1980s, when a rash of store openings intensified competition and forced retailers to look for new ways to stand out.

We run into this a lot with video games- basically all new releases are $60, even the ones that shouldn't be, because $60 is What A New Game Costs and they have to milk as much money out of their crap as they can. Many non-A-list games will go "on sale" for $10 or $20 off mere weeks after they came out, which is preeeeetty irritating when you're the one changing the price tags. (And is one of the reasons I generally only buy Nintendo products, which don't have silly price fluctuations, except for the 3DS that one time LOL.)

Of course, as the article mentions, when stores try to go from the misleading inflated-prices-and-sales format to a more honest everyday-low-price format, people stop shopping there. Retailers are stuck in a cycle of artificially jacking up prices so they can afford crazy markdowns, because people would rather buy stuff off the sale rack. Is it because they think something's better quality if it's priced higher? I dunno.

Other things people complain about, like not including sales tax in the price or pricing everything at $9,999.99 instead of $10,000.00 and so on, is just more nonsense that retailers have come up with to make things look more competitively priced than they are. And you know why they keep doing it?

Because it works.

USians have voted with their wallets, and they said: "We want misleading sale nonsense!" Now we're all stuck with it.

It was this post or a long, profane screed about how much I hate the concept of "deals," because DEALS ARE A LIE.