You don’t have to do Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Disclaimer: This post is written by me, Hollie, and I live in Naarm/Melbourne in colonised Australia in the Southern hemisphere.

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A few days ago when I was scrolling through Instagram, I saw a ​ripper post​ by Michelle at Rolling Panda. The long and the short of it: they’re not having sales in November because they’re not a big company. I am absolutely here for it. Or as the cool kids say, I stan (do they still say that?).

So, taking inspiration from Michelle, today I wanna talk about why you don’t have to do Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The Australian consumer landscape has changed drastically in the last 15+ years. Globalisation of the contemporary times, highly likely attributed to the internet/social/mass media (not fact checked, don’t come at me), is happening at a rapid rate and we cannot get enough of it. Unless you can’t (that’s me).

Kind of ironic given I’m a Communication Design student, right? Here’s where it’s different for me.

Australia does Halloween?

Last week was Halloween. When I was a kid, Halloween was just a thing we saw in American shows and films.

I was 24 (mid October 2008) before my first Halloween experience, and even then it was cursory and steeped in consumerism. I was at Disneyland Paris on my European honeymoon with my now ex-husband. Ironically, Halloween hadn’t even happened yet, but everywhere we went there was Disney-themed Halloween merch. Not entirely a surprise though given Disney is an American corporation.

What was a surprise though was arriving in England a few days later and learning my 10-year-old cousin and her friends were planning their first Trick or Treat outing on Halloween. Looks like that tradition from across the pond had arrived.

Anyway, fast forward to now, 2024, and Halloween is very much a thing in Australia.

Although I don’t like the notion of Trick or Treat-ing, I do like the notion of seeing our best friends, so we gathered at their place for dinner and family fun, as has been our tradition for the last six years (sans Covid lockdowns, of course).

Our daughter dressed as Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday, her entire outfit secondhand, except the wig. Yes, all our kids participated in the house-to-house thing, but it was daylight because it’s spring here.

After that was done (maybe 30-45 minutes of the kids being out in the community) they all came back to our bestie’s house (also, they were under adult supervision whilst in the community) and we played games in the backyard. We tied cinnamon donuts to the Hills Hoist (eat it without using your hands), and had a piñata.

The rest of the time they were doing flips on the trampoline or playing cricket in the driveway, and just generally being kids, while us grown-ups (ugh, I’m a grown-up?!) caught up on all the things. The kids weren’t at all interested in the lollies, their small buckets and baskets sitting randomly around the place. If they’re not interested in the lollies, why all the hype? Ugh. 

The next thing on the globalisation calendar is…

Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The term Black Friday stems from the 1950s-1960s, arising out of Philadelphia’s police department who dreaded the day’s traffic and crowd chaos of post-Thanksgiving shoppers that ensued (​see this article from Huffington Post​).

Of course, this connotation wasn’t good for retailers, so they put their own spin on Black Friday to mark the official start of the Christmas shopping season, and that’s how it became the behemoth it is today. People in the US can be seriously injured or die during Black Friday sales. Although it’s not been updated since 2021,  there’s actually a ​Black Friday Death Count​ website (warning: its SSL expired recently, visit at your own risk). I’d ask the (rhetorical) question of how retailers/corporations can continue with these sales year in year out, but we all know the answer to that.

On Cyber Monday, taken from this article on Investopedia​:

Cyber Monday was created by the ​National Retail Federation (NRF)​‘s Shop.org in 2005 when it noted that consumers generally flocked online after Thanksgiving to do their shopping. There were a few different theories as to why this was so.

One theory suggested that people saw items in stores and shopping malls over the weekend but waited until Monday to buy them at work where they had computers with faster internet connections.

That’s an understandable theory. I remember 2005 internet connections. But still, why is it that us (Aussie small business people) feel as though we must participate in BFCM and similar sales?

Don’t get me wrong, as a consumer, sales are often the only way my family can afford things. And when I say things, I mean things we actually need or have been putting off getting.

I also understand that as business owners sales can bring in much-needed revenue, but if that’s the only way people are buying your things, is that a sustainable business model? BTW, I’m not the person to talk to about that. ​Fi Johnston at Peach Business Management​ is. Fi, a Chartered Accountant with 20+ years experience, is an amazing font of knowledge and wisdom in the Australian small-to-medium business landscape. And she’s an absolutely brilliant woman to boot. You wanna be in Fi’s universe, promise.

Sales, Discounts, Small Businesses, and Consumerism

Consumerism has conditioned people into thinking they can demand a discount or refund for anything and everything, and people think this applies to small businesses too. Here’s an example.

A few years ago, I offered a discount (for the very first time, might I add) on my services to celebrate my birthday.  Althought I landed a handful of new client and projects, some weren’t the right fit for my business. For reasons undisclosed, I sought advice from my commercial lawyer to help me resolve the matter of a client demanding a refund on services rendered. My lawyer’s advice was to make sure you have everything in writing, even if it’s just Ts & Cs on an Instagram post, and as a client/customer, make sure you read all the Ts & Cs/contracts to avoid such situations. Thankfully I had done all that, as well as met all the requirements of the client briefs, including delivering the completed work. To resolve the matter, as a goodwill gesture, I waived the cost of the final invoice for one of the clients who had actually brought me on to help on a retainer basis because my health and sanity were/are worth more than the outstanding invoice.

Ultimately, you wouldn’t ask one doctor for a refund if you needed to get a second opinion from another doctor. You’d accept that the doctor was within their rights to charge you.

And you wouldn’t walk into Myer or Kmart or any other store for that matter, and ask for a discount on the things you’re buying. You accept the shelf price and pay without hesitating.

Of course, if a product is faulty or it doesn’t fit, in line with your country’s consumer laws, exchange or refund. Change of mind or something not being how you imagined it, not valid unless the company or business has a change of mind policy.

For those in Australia, here’s the ACCC’s guidelines. Explicitly:

Occasions when consumers aren’t entitled to a repair, replacement or refund

Consumers are not entitled to a repair, replacement or refund under the consumer guarantees if:

 

• • they got what they asked for but simply changed their mind, found the product cheaper somewhere else, or decided they didn’t like the purchase or had no use for it. However, if a business has a ‘change of mind’ policy, they must follow it.
  • the problem with the product was caused by the consumer misusing it
  • they knew of or were made aware of the problem with the product before they bought it (but they may be entitled to a repair, replacement or refund for a different problem with the product that wasn’t made clear to them before they bought it)
  • asked for a service to be done in a certain way against the advice of the business
  • the problem with a service was caused by the actions of someone other than the business.

You don’t have to do Black Friday and Cyber Monday

I don’t know about you, but as the seasons change, my capacity changes too. I’m not just talking about the weather seasons, I’m talking about the seasons of life.

My latest blog post was written almost 11 months ago. Fifteen days after writing/publishing that post, I found out I’d been accepted to university.

Six days before that post was published, although I’d thought about it for years and years, on a whim I applied to go back to uni. This time, it was time to follow my dreams and study graphic/communication design. I didn’t think I’d get in, and I didn’t have anything to lose, so I just went for it.

Needless to say, my entire existence has changed dramatically.

I’m balancing motherhood and life and studies and neurodivergent brains (me, my husband, and our daughter) and figuring out how I want to move forward as both a capacity advocate and communication designer. I’m not giving this up. I can combine both and I’m pretty sure that will be my superpower.

My business is on hiatus while I study, but there are availabilities if you’d like to work with me during my summer break.

And that finally brings me to the next point: your seasonal capacity.

Sales and offers and discounts need a lot of resources. Time, energy, money, people, supplies…the list is endless. Small business owners don’t often have a lot of those resources. So I ask you, dear reader, why is it that we think we need to put ourselves on sale—at the same time as everyone else on the planet, might I add—just to show we are worthy?

Yo don’t have to do Black Friday or Cyber Monday. I’m not saying don’t sale or discount ever, I’m saying think about your resources and your capacity to do it.

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