@Yeahright Is that so?
“Very few people actually answered the question.”
“My previous entry [is not] intended to make an issue of any of the answers.”
Hmm…
I don’t deny that we may be scooching the jelly a little here (a Fluther idiom for when you play around with the premise of a question), but I don’t see the responses as not answering the question. They invite us all to reconsider what is really of value, and thus what a deal is.
@jca One thing I meant to address but didn’t before is your question about the extent to which some of the sales may be reductions from inflated prices. In most cases, the loss leaders used to advertise Black Friday are old stock that the store wants to get rid of as quickly as possible.
Products are counted as a loss in a company’s accounting books until they’re sold, yet they’re also counted as an asset for tax purposes until they’re sold. This makes them a double liability. Black Friday is an opportunity to clear out warehouses, so there’s little incentive to raise prices in early November just to reduce them in the hopes of creating an illusion of bargains.
This isn’t to say such things are never done. JCPenney used to do it all the time until they were repeatedly called out on it. Especially in the internet age, however, the inevitable bad press just isn’t worth it.