Black Friday

I don't really partake in the Black Friday craze, but the concept is interesting to me. How can a holiday be created by commercial forces? Five years ago, this day didn't even have a name, and somehow it has become a phenomenon which has retailers opening stores earlier and earlier, customers forming lines far in advance, and, most frighteningly, injuries from shopping.

All of this is fascinating to me because of the psychology involved. I don't know much about psychology, but as I talk to friends about this, I want to learn more. For example, right in Menlo Park, a jam study was held at Draeger's looking at whether customers bought more jam if more choices or fewer choices were given. While customers sampled more jam when offered more options, they bought more when offered fewer options. With Black Friday, I browsed some online websites and felt myself drawn to investigate deals on items I would never have bought otherwise. What's the psychology involved to lure me into spending more while thinking I was spending less? While many of us use supermarket "loyalty" cards (like a "Safeway card") because it affords us discounts, and we think supermarket chains use them to build up repeat customers, the true value of loyalty cards lies in allowing the retailer to track what we buy and learn our habits. This is an immensely powerful tool for them to tailor their sales strategies to individual customers.

These are just a few examples of how we as consumers are unconsciously influenced. I don't mean to judge whether they are good or bad; rather, I think they are quite clever yet scary in exploiting vulnerabilities in human psychology. But since it is Black Friday, I figured I'd spend a moment to jot something down about it.