According to the Associated Press, Americans spent a record $11.8 billion online on Black Friday this year and another $6.4 billion on Thanksgiving itself. Physical in-store traffic for Black Friday also ticked up versus the previous week, although shopping for deals has strongly moved online in recent years. What caught my eye about the story, though, was the headline, which suggests the record sales occurred “despite wider economic uncertainty.”
“Despite?” More likely, in my opinion, “because.”
With inflation still running at about 3% annually, prices subject to Trump’s seemingly random tariff policies, the job situation looking more uncertain and unpredictable than it has since the pandemic, what have American consumers been up to? I can tell you what they’ve been up to, because I’ve been up to it myself.
What we’ve all been up to is “waiting for the best deal if the purchase isn’t an emergency.” I started waiting in early October, right after Amazon’s Big Prime Deal Days sale. Not on groceries and stuff like that, obviously. But on electronics, household goods, and other non-perishables. I kept a running list in my head of things I needed or wanted and held off on buying until I started seeing “early Black Friday deals.” Unless you’re wealthy, you probably did the same thing.
The big sales bumps for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the like, aren’t a sign that the economy’s great. They’re a sign that we’re watching our money even more than usual, waiting for the sale price instead of paying MSRP. And our own uncertainty is mirrored by the uncertainty of retailers.
As you may have noticed, we have seen a lot more “big sales” over the last few years. Retailers love to sell lots of stuff year-round, but when no one can know what prices — and incomes — will look like next week, it feels like the best time to get those items out the door, and the money in the bank is ASAP.
That probably explains the ever-expanding nature of Black Friday. Even a few years ago, that fell on, um, Friday. Then we started seeing Cyber Monday, then “early Black Friday deals,” and, I noticed this year, Black Friday Week. A few years from now, the big pre-holiday sales event may be called “November.”
We’re keeping an eye out for especially good deals for two reasons. First, we don’t know what tomorrow will look like. Second, we strongly suspect it won’t look as good as today. We’ve lived in more optimistic, less uncertain times, but this isn’t one of those times.
It’s not just a Trump thing. His second presidency may— hopefully does — represent the pinnacle of massive government debt coupled with cockamamie tax-and-trade policy, but he didn’t invent those problems. He just inherited them and put them on steroids.
In these final shopping days of the holiday season, here’s hoping you found (or still find) what you were looking for. And that you won’t feel like you have to watch your bank balance quite so closely next year. Happy holidays.
Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism. A version of this story originally appeared on TheGarrisonCenter.org. This column reflects the opinions and fact-gathering of the author(s) and only the author(s) and not the Fort Worth Weekly.
