Black Friday used to mean something. It was that frenzied day after Thanksgiving when Americans would line up before dawn, fortified with coffee and determination, ready to battle for doorbusters and lightning deals. One day. One shot. That was the deal.
Those days are over.
Walk through any major retailer right now, and you’ll see Black Friday sales that started before Halloween even ended. Scroll through your inbox, and you’ll find “early Black Friday access” emails stacked a dozen deep. What was once a single-day shopping phenomenon has metastasized into Black Friday Week—sometimes Black Friday Month—as retailers desperately compete for a shrinking pool of consumer dollars.
The Official Story vs. The Real Story
Retailers will tell you this is about “convenience.” They’ll say modern shoppers prefer to spread out their holiday shopping, that they’re simply meeting customer demand for flexibility and choice.
But let’s be honest about what’s really happening here.
Retailers are panicking. They’re watching consumers tap the brakes on spending, and they’re trying to grab sales before their competitors do. Extending Black Friday from one day to a week—or longer—is a survival tactic dressed up as customer service.
When 3% Doesn’t Feel Like 3%
Here’s where the disconnect gets real. The Federal Reserve points to inflation rates hovering around 3% and declares victory. Economists celebrate the taming of inflation. Headlines announce we’re approaching the mythical “soft landing.”
Meanwhile, actual humans are standing in grocery stores experiencing sticker shock that no 3% statistic can explain away.
That’s because the 3% figure is an average—and averages lie. They smooth out the brutal reality that food prices are up significantly more than 3%. Housing costs have skyrocketed. Car insurance has jumped by double digits. Energy bills are higher. Childcare is more expensive. Healthcare costs continue their relentless climb.
Sure, maybe your flat-screen TV is cheaper than it was last year. But you can’t eat a television, and it won’t keep the heat on in January.
Consumers aren’t stupid. They know what things cost. They know what they used to pay for groceries versus what they pay now. They know their paychecks aren’t stretching as far, regardless of what the official inflation rate claims.
The Credit Card Reckoning
Here’s the other part retailers understand: Americans are running out of rope.
For the past few years, consumers kept spending even as prices climbed, primarily by leaning on credit cards. They maintained their lifestyle by borrowing against their future. But that strategy has an expiration date, and we’re approaching it fast.
Credit card debt has hit record levels. Delinquencies are rising. Interest rates on that debt have soared to levels that would have seemed usurious a few years ago—we’re talking 20%, 25%, sometimes north of 30% APR. The minimum payments that once felt manageable are becoming genuinely painful.
At the same time, the pandemic savings are gone. That cushion of stimulus money and deferred spending that propped up consumer balance sheets? Spent. Done. Depleted.
Retailers can see all of this in their data. They can see the hesitation at checkout. They can see customers abandoning carts. They can see the shift toward generics and store brands. They can see people trading down, buying less, and waiting for sales.
And so they’ve decided that if consumers are only going to make a few big purchases this holiday season, those purchases better happen at their store instead of the competition’s.
The Race to the Bottom
Black Friday Week is really a game of retail chicken.
No retailer wants to be the first to blink and slash prices, but none of them can afford to be the last, either. So they’ve settled on this strange compromise: everyone is running sales constantly, each trying to make their discount seem slightly more compelling than the next store’s.
The problem? When everyone has a sale, nobody has a sale. When every day is Black Friday, none of them are.
This creates a kind of promotional arms race in which the actual discounts become less important than the perception of them. Hence, the inflated “compare at” prices, the manufactured urgency of countdown timers, and the endless emails about “exclusive” deals that aren’t particularly exclusive at all.
What This Means for You
If you’re a consumer trying to navigate this mess, here’s the truth: The deals aren’t necessarily better just because they’re spread across a longer period. In many cases, retailers have pulled forward the same promotions they would have run on Black Friday itself.
The real Black Friday—if it still exists at all—might actually be the week after Thanksgiving, when retailers who didn’t hit their numbers start panicking and cutting prices even further.
But more importantly, the extension of Black Friday into a marathon rather than a sprint is an acknowledgment that retailers need your money more than you need their stuff. That’s leverage. Use it.
Don’t feel pressured by artificial urgency. Don’t let “early access” make you feel special enough to overspend. Don’t buy things just because they’re on sale.
Because here’s what Black Friday Week really tells us: Retailers know you’re stretched thin. They know you’re choosing carefully. They know you’re running out of money and credit.
And that’s precisely why they’re working so hard to get what’s left.
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