The Black Fridayborn in the United States, has over time become a global phenomenon, a symbol of promotions and unbridled purchases. Even in Italy it has gained more and more popularity in recent years, establishing itself as an unmissable event for consumers and retailers, especially online, thanks to the driving role of platforms such as Amazon.
However, there is no shortage of criticism. Black Friday in fact best embodies the contradictions of modern consumerism: on the one hand, it pushes us to make impulsive purchases, often of products we don’t really need; on the other hand, many of the offers offered turn out to be less advantageous than they seem, including inflated discounts and promotions on items of questionable quality or of little value.
On Amazon these days we find a sea of ​​discounted products, but how many are really a bargain? An investigation has focused precisely on this point Altroconsumo That analyzed the 50 thousand articles offered by the well-known online platform on the occasion of Black Friday.
The results make us think: there are in fact few real savings opportunities, on the contrary there are many items of little value or of little-known brands.
Lots of products, but little business
The investigation reveals that 46 thousand of the 50 thousand items offered by Amazon for Black Friday are products with an economic value of less than 100 euros. While saving money is always welcome, it comes down to discounts on items that can hardly be defined as “unmissable”.
Moving on to higher value products, the situation doesn’t improve much. As many as 5,000 items over 100 euros they come from little-known or almost unknown brands, which leaves doubts about their quality and reliability. Altroconsumo It also underlines that online reviews do not always offer sufficient guarantees to make informed purchases.
In the end, Altroconsumo he identified only 400 products that meet three fundamental criteria: belong to well-known brands, have a value greater than 100 euros and guarantee a discount of at least 50 euros. Among these, however, few reach excellent quality levels in the comparative tests conducted by the consumer association, in short, the game may not be worth the candle in any case.
Among the articles evaluated by Otherconsumor as high quality, only three products emerge as truly convenient. However, of these, only one is at the lowest price on Amazon, while for the other two it is possible to find better offers on other platforms.
These are:
Real discounts or decoys?
Altroconsumo highlights how, again this year, many of the Black Friday offers are less advantageous than they appear. Although strike-through price regulations have changed, the discounts displayed often take as their basis the initial list price of the product, not the price actually charged in the previous 30 days.
Furthermore, current Black Friday prices do not differ significantly from the minimum prices recorded during the year, demonstrating that monitoring prices at other times can lead to similar savings without waiting for the end of November.
In short, it seems that there is very little business, on the other hand there is a lot of marketing strategy! Altroconsumo urges consumers to be vigilant, compare prices and not be dazzled by flashy discount percentages. We at GreenMe also join this invitation, reminding you not to purchase useless objects and to consider the environmental impact of each of your purchases.
