BLACK FRIDAY SALES 2024
November 2024
With many stories about the origination of "Black Friday", it's hard to know which is true. But what we do know, is that it is associated with heavily discounted sales the month before Christmas.
This exclusive one day sale event has now become a much longer campaign drawn out over the weekend into a Cyber Monday, or even into a whole month!
Should I shop on Black Friday?
As the cost of the living crisis continues, sales such as Black Friday can be a welcoming time, as it allows us to buy bigger purchases at discounted prices. Our take-away is to buy ONLY if you NEED the product!
Black Friday sales are not a sustainable model, and so we must be very careful that we don't get caught up with buying things we don't actually need, just because it is on a supposed 'offer'! Let's face it, we've all done it, it's all too easy to feel like the offer is too good to miss, but then you realise you don't even need the product nor will you ever use it!
There is a huge environmental impact with Black Friday sales:
- Big savings are often found in electronic items. Many replacement items are then put to landfill whilst still worthy of use, or sent to low quality recycling programs.
- Sales and 'offers' encourage shoppers to buy things they don't actually need. This not only contributes to a high level of waste, but also encourages overproduction.
- Various reports state that many purchases are used only once, if at all, before being pushed to the back of the cupboard or thrown away.
- A higher level of packaging for deliveries being used. Many using plastic.
- There is a big impact on carbon emissions as more deliveries are required, the addition of sales and returns just add to the pressure.
- A report from EthicalConsumer.org estimated that deliveries from Black Friday online sales in 2021 released 390,000 tonnes of carbon emissions into the atmosphere, equivalent to carbon produced by 215 flights between London and Sydney! [1.]
A KIND CLOTH Black Friday Sale
As stated above, Black Friday Sales are not sustainable. At A KIND CLOTH, once again, we will not be having any Black Friday Sales. We do not wish to encourage this way of consumerism, nor do we want to contribute to the immense demand that all our postal services and couriers will have to contend with, on top of what they have to provide already.
A KIND CLOTH was set up to give more sustainable options of dressmaking fabrics to the home sewer; making them more accessible in physicality and cost. We question our relationships with our suppliers, and any price reductions from our suppliers are always passed on in the product sale price to you, our customers.
Therefore, we are unable to support such heavy sales on a financial level.
Throughout the year, we always have a "Sales" page on our website: https://akindcloth.co.uk/collections/dressmaking-fabric-sale where you can find products at discounted prices, usually due to a discounted price from our suppliers.
We also have a fabric remnants sale page: https://akindcloth.co.uk/collections/sale-remnants where you can find pieces of fabrics at various lengths, with at least 20% off the price! A great bargain we think, especially if you had your eye on a certain fabric already!
Conclusion
So, as in all consumerism, please do consider what companies you are supporting and question yourself as to whether you genuinely need the product. Don't just get caught up with the hype!
Have a Happy and chaos-free November!
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References:
1. https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/retailers/boycott-black-friday-cyber-monday-2021