Opinion : Are you ready for the ‘Black Friday’ super deals?

Once upon a time knowing the special events that took place every a year was simple. There was just Easter, Halloween, Bonfire Night, Christmas and Boxing Day.

In the past few years several new events have crept in such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Of course these new events are nothing to do with religion, our culture or society in general indeed they are merely a vehicle for the large shops drum up trade.

It seems the merest whiff of a bargain is enough to get some to rush out and empty their wallets and Black Friday seems aimed at these poor souls unable to resist a bargain.

Black Friday entered our culture in 2013, naturally it was inherited from the same country that also gave us the dreadful trick or treat namely the USA. It traditionally falls on the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States (i.e. the fourth Thursday of November). While it’s a fairly new contrivance here in the UK the poor souls in the States have been troubled with it since 1932.

Black Friday has long been regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the USA.

In 2016 Black Friday falls on Friday 25th November 2016, which is just a few days away. Already some of the shops in Wycombe town centre have posters up boasting of the special Black Friday deals that will be released upon the unsuspecting public when the big day arrives.

If you ask me it’s all a load of cobblers designed to whip the gullible into a frenzy and help them to part with their hard earned cash in order to bolster to profits of the shopkeepers.

Those looking for a bargain are far too late it they are leaving it to Black Friday. For example back in October my good self invested in several large boxes of chocolates, with long ‘use by dates’, to give as presents to my close friends. A few weeks after purchase my good self was in the same shop and noticed the price of the chocolates had increased by 25%.

I fear the real bargain hunters have already struck and their purchases are at home awaiting wrapping. However the time is yet to come for those who wish to believe they have a bargain even if the bargain it not as good in reality as it appears on the surface.

Of course Friday 25th November 2016 happens to be one of the ‘free parking’ days in Wycombe town centre, alongside Thursday 17th and Friday 18th November 2016.

Let’s face it Christmas is commercialised, it’s now no more than a glorified advertising exercise and Black Friday is the epitome of all that is wrong with society by exposing the greed and desire in people to gain materialistic possessions at what they think is a bargain price.

What do you think?

*My blogs are published every Tuesday and Friday evening around 8.00pm here on the WycombeToday.com website.

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