Black Friday, 99% off & ‘Throwaway Culture’

November has always been famous for its mass consumerism. With the lead up to Christmas,  Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it’s no wonder. Marketing teams go wild, playing into the  minds of the consumer. In a pandemic, why should that be any different? Either it’s my new  glasses prescription or I’m actually getting older and somewhat wiser, but this shopping habit  has opened my eyes to a whole new issue. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have always been partial  to a good bargain, I am a student after all. However, there comes a point when the sale  becomes too much, and at what cost to someone else?Household names of the online fashion world such as Nasty Gal, Boohoo, and Pretty Little Thing (owned by the Boohoo Group PLC) are notorious for a sale. I don’t think I have ever seen a  product on their sites that was ‘full price’. Why should Black Friday be any different? With this  in mind, I decided to conduct a little experiment, taking on the knowledge awarded by my  secondary school Home Economics lessons. In the early days of the month, I had challenged  myself to complete No Buy November (which was an epic fail might I add). When it came to the  urge to online shop, I would scroll the sites and ‘add to wish list’ over and over, not actually  completing a purchase – It was enough for me (then…). When the Black Friday sale came  around, I thought of my lingering wish list and the discount that would surely be. You can  imagine my bewilderment when I discovered the 75% off sale had barely made a dent. In the  case of some items, the price was in fact higher. A cardigan once claiming to cost €50 now with  75% off – a sure deal, no? I started to wonder if the reference prices ever were such, or was this  just one big psychological scam? You can be sure, there was no ‘add to cart’ that night. According to the Consumer Association of Ireland, ‘’businesses cannot claim that goods have  been sold at a higher price and are now on sale for a lower price unless the goods were actually  on sale at the higher price for a ‘reasonable period’, which is generally understood to be 28  days in the three months before the price reduction”. The Boohoo Group PLC is registered in  Jersey, meaning the fool-proof laws of Ireland don’t apply. When consulting the Advertising  Standards Authority Ltd. (trading as ASA) in the UK, I discovered there was no minimum date  for reference prices. This means that the online site is fully in the right to toy with reference  and sale prices frequently. What does this mean for the consumer? It means we can’t let our guard down. Online shopping  in Ireland was at 51% the past month, overtaking in-person shopping, not surprising due to the  Level Five lockdown. This increased shopping habit lets more and more consumers open for  exploitation by money hungry companies. Oh, and the worst part, consumers are not the only ones being exploited by such companies. To  add fuel to the fire, Pretty Little Thing launched a 99% sale on their site for Cyber Weekend,  with items for sale for less than 30c. Earlier this year, the Boohoo Group PLC were found to be  paying staff less than €3.90 per hour and expected the workers to perform in ‘unsanitary’  conditions. A spokesperson for Pretty Little Thing said the 99% sale was because ‘’after a bleak  2020 for most of us, we wanted to offer something competitive and understand people may be  spending less in what is usually peak shopping season”. While the thought may be of good will,  one cannot but wonder if a company is selling an item so cheaply, how does the price break  down? How much does the worker really get for their work? In line with the scary reality of seasonal sales, how much money was spent on unnecessary  items due to them being deemed ‘too good a bargain’? How many new dresses for 15c have  been bought during Cyber weekend, only to sit in a wardrobe, tags still on for months on end,  until eventually binned and added to the world’s throwaway culture? According to Green is the  New Black, the world is producing up to 100 billion new garments a year, 73% of which will end  up in landfill or incinerators. The average person buys 60% more clothing and keeps it for about half as long as they did fifteen years ago. The global apparel and footwear industry  accounts for an estimated 6% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, 17-20% of all industrial  water pollution and up to 20% of pesticide use. The sourcing of natural materials also damages  fragile ecosystems and threatens biodiversity. Industry ‘greenwashing’ is doing more harm than  good. In the United States in 2018, Black Friday generated $6.2 billion in online sales in the US alone – a growth of 23.6% from the previous year. China’s annual Singles Day generated a record $38 billion in sales, up 25% since the previous year. Yes, the influx of these sales may boost the  economy, but what is the true cost? We foot the bill to our planet, send shopping invoices to  our rivers, our trees and our icecaps. Increased pressure and destruction of our climate must  outweigh the importance of economic growth.  How many more ‘LIMITED TIME ONLY’, ‘75% OFF UNTIL MIDNIGHT’ emails must we receive  before we unsubscribe from over consumption?