Black Friday or “black sham”? 41 percent of Poles count on cheaper electronics. How not to get cut?

Black Friday falling on November 25 (and Cyber ​​Monday following it on November 28) have been associated with exceptional promotions for years, which – according to stores – are to reach 60, 70, and sometimes even 80 and more percent. And while “hunting” the products we are looking for these days is not a bad thing, buying products mainly because they are discounted is an undesirable phenomenon.

Black Friday – shopping that doesn’t always make sense

This year’s Black Friday, as usual, is expected to attract thousands or millions of customers in Poland. According to, for example, a study by Digital Care, 41 percent Poles plan to buy electronics at a discounted price this Friday and next Mondayand 35 percent has not yet made a decision. Most of us (31 percent) count on reductions of up to 50 percent.

More than half (55 per cent) declared that due to the current economic situation and inflation they would limit spending on Black Friday. The largest group, 24 percent. plans to spend between PLN 500 and PLN 1,000 on shopping. 20 percent of respondents are looking for products up to PLN 500, and 19 percent. of us saved from PLN 1,000 to PLN 2,000 for shopping. Most are looking for smartphones and peripherals – 26% each.

However, when looking for bargains in stationary stores and on the Internet, it is worth being careful that the “hunt” for unique promotions does not turn into a festival of buying products that we probably do not need. Not only because of the pointless spending of savings, but also because of the environment.

In 2020, the British comparison site Money.co.uk calculated the ecological cost of the shopping frenzy on Black Friday. The amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere on this occasion (and only in Great Britain) was to amount to 429,000. tone. That’s about as much as a few hundred long-haul flights cost the planet. All because the production, transport and sale of each product always involves the emission of greenhouse gases.

How to shop wisely on Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday?

A good way to do this during Black Friday is to plan to buy one or at most a few items that we actually planned to buy. If we are looking for a new smartphone or laptop, Black Friday is a good day to look around for it. Perhaps you can actually find it at a lower than usual price. If not? It is difficult, it is also worth looking for it in the following days and weeks. Stores often organize promotions long after Black Friday – in the pre-Christmas period and in the last days of the year.

When we see big red banners with promotions, we often act impulsively. This is fueled by the sellers themselves, claiming that the number of discounted products is very limited, and the interest in the offer is huge.

Buying under the influence of emotions, just because something is 20 or 30 percent more. cheaper than usual is usually not a good idea. A few days after the purchase, when the emotions subside, it is often discovered that the item will not necessarily be useful. Of course (in the case of online sales) we can return most goods within two weeks, but this again generates additional costs for the climate.

Promotions are not always real. How not to get cut on Black Friday?

In addition, currently Black Friday in Poland is rather a day of “black scam”. Promotions that are too good to be true are usually fake. A classic move that many sellers use is to significantly increase the price a few or several days before Black Friday, and then lower it to a similar level as before. When there is a big inscription “50 percent cheaper” hanging next to it, not everyone will pay attention to the trick. He even warned against such a practice.

As we wrote from the “Christmas Price Barometer” of Deloitte, in 2021, in 800 analyzed online stores, promotions reached an average of … only 3.6 percent. As much as 57 percent of sellers did not prepare any offers for customers at all. Very similar data appeared in previous years.

It is therefore worth being careful and checking the prices of the same product in different stores. A good step is also to use price comparison websites (e.g. ceneo.pl, skapiec.pl, nokaut.pl and others), which allow you to check how the price of a given product developed in previous days and weeks. Unfortunately, it often turns out that before Black Friday it was even lower than during the holiday of promotion.