Are stores artificially inflating prices before Black Friday? Poles have no doubts

Black Friday is fast approaching. The first Friday after the American Thanksgiving Day is the day of great sales in stores, which allows you to buy at a bargain price, among others: clothing, footwear, electronics and toys.

“Black Friday” is becoming more and more popular in Poland, as evidenced by a survey published a week ago by SW Research for “Wprost”. Almost 60 percent respondents admitted that they plan to look for attractive price opportunities this year in connection with Black Friday. Almost 30 percent respondents have no such plans.

The report “Poles on the Black Friday course. 2025 edition” shows that nearly 72 percent Poles believe that the prices of products or services are raised before Black Friday to make subsequent “promotions” seem more favorable to customers. However, even the awareness of the existence of such activities does not discourage customers, which is due to the large number of discounts and the common nature of these activities. Consumers are looking for the lowest prices anyway, and the mere act of communicating promotions encourages them.

– The research results clearly show that abuses of promotional policies do occur. Even if consumers are wrong, they still believe that something is wrong. The indicator itself is high and shows that the phenomenon of price increases before price reductions is widely noticed. At the same time, there is an opinion in society that promotions are profitable. Black Friday is perceived as an opportunity to make a profitable purchase. This is our new secular tradition. Retail knows this very well, so it rhythmically uses various types of shopping holidays throughout the year, of which this is the largest – comments Dr. Maria Andrzej Faliński, former general director of POHiD.

Few trust stores before Black Friday

4.6% of respondents do not perceive price increases in the period preceding Black Friday. respondents. According to the report’s authors, this group of consumers does not regularly monitor prices, does not compare offers or does not make purchases during this period, so there is no basis to notice differences. Therefore, this is not evidence of the absence of the practice, but an indication that not all consumers are active in observing the market.

The report also shows that the majority, 84 percent. consumers always check whether a given promotion offered on Black Friday is real and whether it is actually profitable for them.

– This result shows that the promotions are questionable. Consumers are aware that fraud may occur, but they still look for good deals with their eyes wide open. This is a matter of a certain consumer awareness game and a trade business game. However, whoever cheats is at risk, because nowadays dishonest activities can be easily revealed to the general public – emphasizes Dr. Maria Andrzej Faliński.

Verification of offers is driven by both the desire to save money and limited trust in traders. Consumers use price comparison websites, mobile applications and price histories. For trade, this means the need for reliable price communication. Otherwise, customers will quickly expose fake promotions and lose trust in the brand.

– Checking the profitability of a promotion results directly from the desire to make a purchase at the lowest possible price. Searching for the best deal is now very easy and quick, because you can use, for example, price comparison websites displayed on your smartphone. For the stores themselves, this means that creating promotions is becoming more and more difficult because they have to pay attention to the dynamically changing price offers of their competitors. The customer is demanding and the choice of offers – wide – emphasizes Dr. Dominik Śliwicki from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.