Black Friday this year, it is celebrated on November 29, and on that occasion, merchants announced allegedly large price reductions. Representatives consumer caution, because the question is whether the discounts are real or just a marketing ploy.
"Black Friday in Serbia is far from what Black Friday is in America, where consumers buy televisions and technical goods, when they camp out all day, set up tents where they wait all night for stores to open in the morning. Then the discounts will be really significant, a TV that cost 500 dollars can be bought for 50 or 100 dollars, so people buy what they don't need," Dejan Gavrilović from the Consumers' Association Eftekrifa told "Vreme".
And in Serbia it is completely different, even when it comes to the way Black Friday is promoted, with 10 to 20 percent discounts.
"These are often misleading prices, because they are previously raised and then lowered, which then comes to the same as before Black Friday." The euphoria of Black Friday in Serbia may exist, but it is unjustified, because on the ground, apart from honorable exceptions, real discounts are not a practice," says Gavrilović.
If Friday was really black it wouldn't last so long
He states that the difference is that in America, Black Friday lasts for one day, when everything that was on offer is sold out, and in Serbia, Black Friday has become Black Sunday and Black Month, with permanent goods on offer.
If it was an actual Black Friday, he adds, those goods would sell out in a day or two, and there would be no more, so Black Friday wouldn't be able to last that long either.
"Exactly the fact that Black Friday in Serbia lasts so long shows that these are not prices that are really attractive to consumers, and that's why these goods stay on the shelves for so long," says Gavrilović.
Regardless of whether it's Black Friday or not, whenever discounts are advertised, citizens should check the prices at other sellers, and based on that, determine whether it's really a discount, advises Gavrilović.
"It happened that at a seller's Black Friday, the device, with a discount, costs the same or even more than at another seller who offers it at a regular price, which shows that it is a deception," concludes Gavrilović.
Cyber Monday and Cyber Week
Black Friday as a phenomenon appeared in the United States of America and it is the Friday after Thanksgiving.
It traditionally marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and is the busiest shopping day of the year, when many stores offer big sales at discounted prices and often open early, sometimes as early as midnight or even on Thanksgiving itself.
The sales at some stores continue until Monday, which is called Cyber Monday, or for a week, which is Cyber Week.
The concept of Black Friday is globalized, and countries around the world are adopting this way of selling to imitate the American phenomenon, adapting local customs or creating similar events.
The advent of online shopping and events like Cyber Monday have expanded the traditional one-day shopping frenzy into the broader holiday shopping season, diluting Black Friday's singular focus and broadening its economic impact.
