Black Friday 2015: A Consumerist’s Future
Black Friday of 2015 occurred once
more, opening stores on Thursday afternoon and evenings, hardly worth of the
title its given. But did it live up to the expectations and hype that preceded
it? Consumers didn’t think so, which begs the question…why was Black Friday
slumping in sales?
Reports had estimated that sales had
declined from physical stores, a 1.2 billion dollar decrease as reported by
ShopperTrak; sales on Thanksgiving alone slumped by 200 million, jumping from
two billion, to 1.8 billion. Although this may signal a variety of problems,
online shopping from last year to 2015 had rose over 14 percent, bringing in
over 2.72 billion. Although these numbers are estimated as of recent, the trend
towards digitization of consumerism is an interesting thought at the very
least.
The topic of consumerism not just in
America, but globally has sparked interesting debates within the past half
century, as the rise of capitalism and mass production has allowed for an ease
of access with regards to not only electronics, but appliances and other things
as well. More recently in the past twenty year has technology rapidly
progressed to a mainstream audience, no longer applicable to a select few.
Which raises an important question. Are the days of physical shopping coming to
an end, or is it just a short sighted futuristic vision?
I think that overtime, we’ll have
even more convenient ways of shopping for what we want on a want and need
basis. Already places such as Amazon are deploying drones as a way to deliver
items (albeit small ones) to the homes of the their consumers. A plethora of
retailers now have mobile apps attributed to their own store, allowing
consumers to browse at will, all from their own homes. But in twenty thirty
years time, efficiency will be improved with regards to shipping, as retailers
rely on the consumerist’s money to continue thriving. A faster delivery service
not only allows for higher satisfaction, but builds a trust between the
consumer and supplier. Although this may seem convenient, an even more
important issue arises. Privacy.
Within the past few years since the
Snowden revelations, there’s been a huge shift
with regards to privacy and maintaining trust between the tech user and various
search engines. But in relation to retailers, do they really have your best
interest at heart? The answer is no. As with Black Friday come the so called deals that they rave about, plastering
them all over their websites and online. The truth is that many of these deals
were artificially inflated prior to Black Friday, only to have the price drop
to what seemed like a deal to the
consumer, when in reality, they most likely could’ve bought it at another time
at a cheaper price. Not only do they lie, but they do so with conviction.
With Amazon using drones to start
delivering products, are retailers and companies one’s that we can actually
trust with putting limits on personal privacy? I say no, and for very good
reason. Just by looking at the transformation of the internet from early
2000-2015, its easy to see why; gone are the days of pages loading the
information that pertains to the link. In 2015, its impossible to click on any
page without having load a plethora of ads, all from various companies. Gone
are the days of simple web browsing, and hello to ad-blockers and the struggle
for noninvasive advertising. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Sites like
Reddit, visited by millions, are being astroturfed by companies to promote
their products by playing on the idea of memes and societal integration. So
what exactly is the future of consumerism? If we continue down the road with
privacy erosion at the expense of convenience, there’s no limitation on what
can be accomplished by various retailers. The erosion of privacy is guaranteed,
and sooner or later, there will no longer be choice if we continue to remain
apathetic.
No comments:
Post a Comment