Screw Black Friday, How About Great Deals Year Round?

It's started again... The holiday songs are out. The holiday decore is out. We have everything but the bell ringers in front of the grocery stores.

And people are complaining.

The "holiday shopping season" is when retailers make up to a third of their annual profits. I get that. I'm actually FINE with that. Profits are how a business stays in business. But jamming FOUR MONTHS OF SHOPPING into a month of time is a horrendous experience - both for retailers who have to cope with the mobs and the mobs coping with the mobs. The WORST time to be out doing any kind of shopping is when there are four (or more) times more people out there shopping at the same time.

I've mentioned that this whole thing sucks donkey dicks. And here we go again.

But here's the thing... Why do they have these "specials" for only a month when they make three times the amount of money they make? Yes, the density of the crowds, I get that. They make a third of their profits off four times as many people as normal. But if they actually spread it out, had these fire-engine specials more often - say once a month for a week or so - they'd probably get the same response. Granted, people aren't always buying for other people, but in today's USA, gifting isn't what it used to be. Self-gifting seems to be the trend. That means people are using these specials to buy things for THEMSELVES.

Combine this trend with the fact that on any given day, about a million people have a birthday in the U.S. and you have adequate reason to go out and take advantage of the monthly Black Sales. (Maybe we can call it Fire-Engine sales. Too many people in the South would be wondering why they can't buy a Black for their very own.) The crowds wouldn't be as large, of course, but that's the whole point. Gigantic crowds, traffic jams, nightmarish lines, stampeding mobs, death and destruction. Those are all hallmarks of the shopping season supposedly dedicated to "peace on earth and goodwill toward men".

Bah humbug.

The thing is that these experiences are god-awful. They detract from the "holiday" spirit to the point that people have to have FUNERALS at a supposed time of celebration. The "holiday shopping season" is one of the most dreaded times of the year for most people. (Stress.) The guilt of not finding the "perfect gift". (More stress.) Not getting the "best deal". (Still more stress.) Shortages of popular items. (Time for the seasonal stroke or heart attack.).

When I can afford it, I do my shopping for the rest of the year about a week before Thanksgiving and never go to the store again until the new year has arrived. I have LONG since stopped giving gifts for the "holidays" (partly because I'm not Christian and don't celebrate the solstice on the 25^th, but on the day it actually happens - whatever date that is in December). I don't need to sing the After-Holiday, Empty-Pocket, Struggling To Pay Off The Credit Card blues.

But some of the deals are attractive to a thrifty shopper. Why confine that to a limited time? Why not make those deals more conveniently available? Why not treat the customer like a person instead of a walking wallet you want to pick once a year?

I don't see the crowds forming all year long for this like they do once a year, but on average, you'll get more shoppers more consistently if you do those kinds of deals more often. The SCALE doesn't have to be as great, either. With great deals available more often, people will scale back the rush, but they'll still be there more frequently buying things. This is especially true if the stores start catering to birthdays and self-indulgence. It's a monday, have a monday blues pick-me-up sale! It's a Friday, have a TGIF sale! It's a weekend, have a weekend sale!

I've done Black Friday ONCE. I stood in line for a cheap shop-vac and realized, after an hour, that the savings wasn't worth my time. Between the stress, the parking nightmare, the traffic, the god-awful music, the rude sales people and the ruder customers, getting a shop-vac for fifteen bucks less than its normal price wasn't worth it.

I left it sitting to the side in the line.

The moral of THIS story is, the holiday shopping EXPERIENCE actually makes people NOT buy things. That means they don't go to the stores for the loss leaders, they don't buy other stuff, they don't deal with crowds, they don't eat out. And there are a lot of us who do this out there. Enough to make up the difference if one spreads these deals out over the year? Possibly.

The good news is that the trend toward earlier specials has already started. Not that it's exactly year-round, of course. But the idea is solid. Offer BETTER specials in a coordinated fashion far more often than just during the "holiday shopping season". It helps the shopper, it helps the business and it keeps the shopping rage and stress to a minimum because you're not out there fighting with so many others so much.

It would get people like ME to spend more money than we do. And when looking for profits, one needs to sometimes look not at the customers in the store, but why more customers aren't.