Martine St-Victor: Black Friday and rethinking our consumer habits

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Growing up, we would put up the Christmas tree around the beginning of Advent. Removing the tree from a dented box that had been in the garage for 11 months and untangling the decorations and lights ushered in the season. Now, its beginning is marked by the most American consumer exercise: Black Friday.

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Traditionally, Black Friday was observed only in the United States, the day after Thanksgiving. Today, the biggest discounts begin one week before that holiday, which is observed on the third Thursday in November, and extend through what is called Cyber ​​Monday. A tribute, so to speak, to online shoppers and procrastinators.

You can’t miss Black Friday. Storefronts across Montreal advertise it with the kind of fanfare that movie theaters use to announce Hollywood blockbusters, and our inboxes are filled with emails promising the best deals of the year. But more than anything, it’s the images of shoppers queuing in front of stores, entering once their doors open, and stampeding out for expensive items, that are etched into our collective minds. These images, which were once almost comical to some, have become grotesque for many. A website called blackfridaydeathcount.com tracks deaths and injuries that occur on Black Friday. In Quebec, in French, Black Friday is called Vendredi Fou, Crazy Friday. That website proves that yes, things can get out of hand.

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I love shopping almost as much as I love sales. Still, the images of Black Friday have forced me to rethink my relationship with that time of year that is now celebrated as a holiday. Do I really need something? Am I just making up needs for myself? Am I one of these people who will end up on the evening news in a report about how wild Black Friday was?

A better question would be: Is this really about me? The answer is no, it is not. Because Black Friday isn’t about those who don’t need anything, or at least it shouldn’t be. Rather, it is about those who do need things, essential things: coats, which seem to get more expensive every year, for winters that seem to get colder; mattresses to make a house a home; toys for children whose parents cannot afford them at other times of the year. Black Friday is also about the retail industry. In La Presse, Détail Québec, a non-profit retail industry organization, estimated that November and December they represent 30 percent of annual sales.

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That’s a significant percentage, particularly now, as many retailers are still recovering from the pandemic, despite the government help some of them received.

Of course, Christmas and Boxing Day have long represented the consumer frenzy this time of year. And Boxing Day has also stretched from December 26 to lasting a week or even a month. Black Friday just makes things start earlier.

How does a successful local business cheerleader like me accept my slight aversion to Black Friday? I’m not sure.

But I do like the collective rethinking that has begun regarding our relationship with consumption. Early this summer a survey revealed that two-thirds of Quebecers were in favor of nonessential stores closing on Sundays. Of course, we can get what we want, almost whenever we want, on the always-open internet and the current labor shortage makes Sunday closings almost inevitable in some cases, but the numbers show something of a change. , far from stop buying. The same can be said for the United States. There, and for the second year in a row, big and influential retailers like Best Buy and Target will be closed on Thanksgiving. Some consumer habits are changing and so are we, and that seems prudent.

Martine St-Victor is the general manager of Edelman Montreal and a media commentator. Instagram and Twitter: martinemontreal