Don't Get Sucked In
Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Boxing Day are coming for you
First, A Shameless Plug For My MBA Project Survey
I’m running a survey for one of my MBA classes and I’m really excited about this one! It’s a project researching consumer use of digital wardrobing apps - think Indyx, Whering, Acloset, etc. If you use a digital wardrobing app, would you be open to taking this short, totally anonymous survey in Google Forms?
A huge thank you to everyone who’s already filled this out, your responses have been incredibly helpful. The survey will stay open for the next couple of weeks if you have a spare five minutes. Surveys aren’t your thing? Please feel free to comment below or DM me with thoughts on your favorite (or not so favorite) wardrobing app, or why you’ve decided against using one at all. All insights are valuable and appreciated.
Early Access! The Biggest Savings of the Year! Don’t Miss Out! Hours Left to Save!
The period between pumpkin spice latte season and Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year - holiday movies, Christmas trees, and festive baking? Yes please. Being a merchant helped me keep the mood going year-round since I was either buying a holiday assortment, budgeting for peak holiday, roadmapping holiday marketing, or fighting for my category’s life from November Wk 1 to Jan Wk 4. It’s the time of year that most retailers make the bulk of their annual revenue and it keeps getting pulled up earlier every.single.year. I got my first Black Friday email on October 15th this year - you?
I know it can be extremely tempting to want to buy everything in every email because it’s designed to be that way. Lots of urgency, limited time offers, and constantly fluctuating prices create extreme pressure to BUY IT NOW! I like to think that I’m immune to the lure of big holiday sales after years of being part of the big sale machine, but I’m not. I specifically saved 40% of the spots on my 10 New Things pledge to use over the next month, and honestly? There’s a non-zero chance that I might end up with a little more than 10 new things this year. It’s been a rough one and my brain is saying that I need many #littletreats to compensate, except I’ve shot past oat milk matcha latte territory directly into new clothing.
As we’re being bombarded with promo marketing, I wanted to share a few things that may help with the sale fever dream that we’ve been collectively launched into this week. If that ship has already sailed (hello? Black Friday started last month), then consider saving this post as a refresher for the height of clearance season in January.
If it’s on a huge discount for Black Friday, you probably don’t want it: It was bulk bought in a lower quality fabric to be run on promo, no one’s buying it at full price so it was added to the Black Friday sale, the steep discount is masking fit issues, the shipment was delayed so we have to put those sequin dresses on mega sale so they won’t linger into next summer, or it’s so trendy that you will immediately stop wearing it on January 1st.
The things not included in the Black Friday sale are the things that you want: It’s trend-right or an amazing basic, it sold so well at full price we’re not giving up an inch of margin to make up for the 60% off sequin dresses, it went viral and now everyone wants it, it’s new spring delivery, or it’s simply too good to ever go on sale. Best case scenario: your brand doesn’t need to run promos to sell clothing (the dream).
Avoid the brands that are always on sale: There are brands that only pulse promotions a few times a year, Black Friday & Cyber Monday being one of them. These are the brands that I prefer to shop during peak holiday since the quality is likely to be higher, the production lower, and the marketing less go-go-go. Then there are brands that use promotions as their main strategy to sell product. The ones that run near-daily sales with email headlines like “Lowest Price of the Year”, “Sale Extended One More Day!”, and “We’ve Never Done This Before” (p.s. they absolutely have). This is a slippery slope for retailers since constantly cranking through a high volume of units at low prices tends to devalue your brand and reduce product quality over time. It can be the entire ethos of some brands - fast fashion comes to mind - and this model has a total lack of environmental sustainability that conjures up the exploding head emoji.
Sooo…Black Friday Isn’t Sustainable?
Not really - and it’s more than just the actual items we buy during Black Friday and Cyber Monday contributing to the climate crisis: it’s the overt overconsumption, the mountains of plastic packaging, the supply chain carbon emissions, the post-Christmas returns, and the lack of circular infrastructure at end-of-life. A study found that up to 80% of purchases become waste, whether via landfill, incineration, or poor quality recycling.
I recently wrote about secondhand gifts slowly starting to lose their stigma here. Some 2024 evidence of this trend: secondhand marketplaces Fashionphile, Rebag, The RealReal, and ThredUp all have digital gifting content. Depop’s searches for gifts were up almost 11K in the last week, outpacing other site searches, a particularly promising sign for positive consumer attitudes towards preloved gifting in the Gen Z market. To be transparent, secondhand gifting isn’t a perfect solution since there’s still the carbon footprint of shipping, packaging, and returns, but overall prioritizing secondhand over firsthand is a win for circularity.
Don’t Just Take It From Me
It brings me great joy and hope to see so many writers on fashion Substack exploring the topic of overconsumption and their approach to responsibility within their own wardrobes. I wanted to share the posts that I’ve saved as a reminder to not get caught up in the sales this weekend.
: Shopping Your Closet
Creative ideas for styling what you already own, no Black Friday purchases required.
: Don’t Panic
A great reminder that it’s really, truly, always on sale.
: Opting Out of Black Friday
Rachel’s six gems are perfect, especially petting all of the dogs and reading books.
: Mindful Gifting
The best kind of gifts, from unique activities to the beautiful things that you wouldn’t typically buy for yourself.
: Thoughtful Purchasing
Five fast guidelines to help you decide if you really need that (insert Black Friday/Cyber Monday deal here).
That’s it for this week, thanks for reading! I hope that this gave you some ideas about shopping more responsibly during the most wonderful time of the year. I’d love to know if you’ve read a particularly inspiring post that has helped you to consume less, or anything you’re doing to resist the BUY IT NOW! By the time you read this I might have bought some new things off my wishlist. I’ll share my final 10 New Items pledge tally at the end of December, overages and all.
Also! I recently started a chat, which is mostly me talking to myself about fashion memes, intriguing retail/fashion/consumer behavior articles, and things from The RealReal that need a good home. I’d love it if you joined me :)
I can’t help but buy into a good deal! Need to work on this.
Thanks for the shout out Tina!! I’m so glad that there is a strong contingent of SS advocating for not spending or- at the very least- being a thoughtful spender.