Selling Out
Sales season has become a double-edged sword for independent businesses — do you opt out of the chaos and risk falling behind, or go all in?
Black Friday was once a term used to signal calamity: financial crises, environmental disasters, unprecedented havoc. It was only in the ‘50s, as shopping slowly morphed from a necessity into an interest or a hobby that the name was given to the Friday after Thanksgiving in the US, to mark the start of sales season. Now, in 2024, the event has become a key part of the shopping calendar all around the world, with promotions starting as early as the turn of November. With markdowns and slashed prices announced with more insistence and urgency than ever, the doom of its namesake is more palpable than ever.
During last year’s Black Friday week, it was estimated that 1.2 million tons of CO2 was released into the atmosphere just from trucks transporting goods around Europe — to put that into alarming context, that’s reportedly 94% more than an average week. Waste also drastically increases during the sales period, with the Green Alliance reporting that up to 80 percent of items purchased on Black Friday, including their packaging, are thrown away after just a few uses, or sometimes without being used at all — in the US alone, waste is said to increase by 25 percent just in the period between Black Friday and the New Year.
In the midst of a cost of living crisis that isn’t slowing, it’s not as simple as asking consumers to not shop, or asking businesses to forgo potentially one of their most profitable days of the year. “I do acknowledge the complexity; affordability is an important factor,” shares sustainable fashion expert and host of the podcast Wardrobe Crisis , Clare Press. “Obviously inflation and financial stress are biting widely, so I’m not here to tell you to spend money you don’t have, or to feel guilty about savvy budgeting.”
But Press urges even those that are feeling the impacts of the cost of living crisis to realise that Black Friday “isn’t really about affordability.” “It’s… consumerism on steroids, and the big retailers manipulating customers into buying stuff they don’t need in a sort of frenzy. And make no mistake, this is by design.”
“For many, it’s a Hobson’s Choice; they’re backed into a corner. They don’t want to go on sale and devalue the precious work that they’ve poured heart and soul into, but ... everyone else is doing it, they need to free up some cash, don’t want to be left with the stock etc. They end up barely breaking even.”
While the onus has long been on the consumer to shop mindfully, some brands have started to push back against the pressure to heavily discount their goods.Melbourne-based boutique Before March, which only stocks brands that use sustainable principles in their design, criticised the prolonging of the sales season from just one day into a month-long affair, saying that it put “undue pressure” on small businesses to “partake in big sales events that don’t reflect their values”. It stated it would mark down items when it believed there was a genuine need to do so, and according to its own timeline.And while Before March didn’t blame small businesses who took part in Black Friday — whether it was due to them feeling pressure to partake, being guilted by customers into marking down their stock, or because they feared losing a sale to another brand — it did warn of the dangers of creating a culture that values the lowest cost; one that expects sales to come regularly and holds off transacting until it comes around.
Footwear brand Twoobs offered a similar sentiment: “We're not having a Black Friday sale this year. Or next year. Or any year after that”, the brand wrote on Instagram, explaining that they would instead offer their “best possible price” all year round rather than raising and slashing prices to create the illusion of a great deal.
Emma Lewisham is yet another brand that doesn’t, and will continue not to, align with Black Friday. “Participating in Black Friday would conflict with our core purpose,” explains Lewisham, founder of the eponymous skincare line. “We stand for thoughtful and conscious consumption.” But she also acknowledges the complicated relationship small businesses can have with the sales event.
“For small businesses, particularly those with sustainability at their core… Black Friday can be a double-edged sword—while it offers the potential for increased sales, [an opportunity to grow brand awareness and generate significant sales in a short period], the ethical concerns around overconsumption, waste, and environmental impact are real.”
Customer expectations are part of the reason that brands feel the need to participate in events like Black Friday: but labels like the sustainable basics focussed Ninety Percent, which gives 90 percent of its profits to charitable causes, are finding alternative ways of meeting their needs. “We invite you to our new chapter, making sustainable fashion a standard, not a privilege,” Ninety Percent wrote, and explained that they would be permanently reducing prices so that there was “no rush” to shop and over-consume.
"“I believe [Black Friday] is a model designed to panic and pressure consumers into buying things they don't actually need or want,” Anna Vidovic, founder of Australian children’s and babywear label Philé, says. Vidovic believes that hyperactive sales culture puts small businesses in the firing line, due to a cycle of markdowns and price matches that big retailers and e-tail giants can afford and smaller counterparts simply cannot. “We consume far too much and it’s not only suffocating our environment, it’s obliterating the viability of small business…They are closing down at a disproportionate rate and I'm devastated. We all should be.”
But there’s a complexity to the situation, too. “I have women emailing and DM’ing me almost daily asking me if I'll ever go on sale as they love my baby bag but can't afford it. I can empathise with them. Cost of living right now is sky high and a $200 baby bag is a luxury,” she says. Vidovic ultimately decided to launch Philé’s first (and possibly last) promotion during the sales season. “It's the first time I've discounted my items, and who knows if I'll do it again. In truth, I feel conflicted about it,” she says. Vidovic explains that she finds comfort in knowing that her pieces are built for longevity and are made with fair practices. “I design and manufacture my pieces to last, and I know that families have and will continue to use their Philé pieces through multiple babies and children, years into the future.”
Echoing Lewisham’s sentiment, Vidovic agrees that responsibility falls on the business to “reeducate” their consumers on the worth of good quality pieces: “I think the system is broken and we need to reeducate society that things cost money because there is an army of ordinary people behind every single product and they deserve to be paid fairly for their time.”
“Personally, I will be boycotting Black Friday, as usual,” says Press. “If we value our indie retailers, and the diversity of our high streets, we need to support them by giving them our business, if we can afford to. [Take] a stand.”