These 4 things kept consumers from shopping on Black Friday this year

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Some consumers skipped the biggest shopping day of the year for good reason.

Key points

• Black Friday is when there are usually plenty of bargains to be found.
• Some consumers opted out of Black Friday, which might have been a smart move.
• Their reasons included avoiding crowds, bad business, and lack of money.

There’s a reason Black Friday tends to be so hyped. The day after Thanksgiving, you’ll usually find plenty of deals on everything from toys to clothes to electronics. And often the prices you’ll find on Black Friday are the lowest prices you’ll get all year (although that’s certainly not always the case).

But not everyone shops on Black Friday. And in a recent report by PYMNTS, those are four reasons why some consumers pulled out of the big event.

1. Crowded stores

For 31% of those who didn’t shop on Black Friday, crowded stores were a deciding factor. The reality is that many people started shopping online during the pandemic and as a result they are now less enthusiastic about waiting in long queues and standing shoulder to shoulder with others in stores. If you’ve decided you can’t compete with your fellow shoppers on Black Friday, don’t worry.

2. A lack of funds

A good 29% of people who dropped by on Black Friday said they didn’t have enough money to shop that day. And they made a very smart decision. It’s not a good idea to shop around when money is tight because it’s a great way to end up in credit card debt. A much better solution is to save up front so you can fully cover your Black Friday purchases. And so if you skipped Black Friday because you didn’t save any money, you’ve made a very smart choice.

3. Wanting to wait

Many great deals can appear during Black Friday. But that doesn’t mean good deals can’t emerge after the fact. That’s why 18% of those who skipped Black Friday did – they specifically wanted to wait and see what other deals came along. Now, we don’t know if those same people ended up taking advantage of Cyber ​​Monday. But chances are the Monday after Thanksgiving was also loaded with bargains.

4. Poor offers

For 15% of people who didn’t shop on Black Friday, the reason came down to thinking the deals weren’t good enough. While retailers tend to offer discounts across a range of categories during Black Friday, sometimes those deals aren’t that substantial. If you’re not a big fan of big retail events and saw that most of the items you were interested in were only marked down by 10% or 15%, that might have been a reason for say no to Black Friday shopping.

It’s okay to skip Black Friday

There’s a lot of pressure to shop on Black Friday. Marketers like to impress on consumers that if they don’t hit the stores that day, they’re going to miss out on massive deals that they’ll never find again.

But the reality is that it’s totally okay to skip Black Friday and shop another time for the holidays — or even not shop at all. So if you’ve decided to pass on the Black Friday discounts this year, rest assured you haven’t made a silly choice. If anything, you’ve probably done a sage.