BY JOHN ELLIS, FINANCIAL ADVISOR
This year’s Black Friday (November 28) will be quieter, according to PwC. A recent survey of 2,000 Irish consumers shows planned spending falling 14% to €283 from €329 in 2024. Almost three-quarters of those surveyed (73%) intend to spend the same or less than last year. And only 14% expect to exceed €500, down from 20%.
Ireland remains one of Europe’s highest-spending nations (€283 against a continental average of €268) but the direction is, unmistakably, towards restraint. Persistent inflation in food, energy and housing has left households with less disposable income and far less tolerance for gimmicks. When rent and groceries consume an ever-larger share of the wage packet, the promise of 30% off a games console loses some of its shine.
The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission’s separate research lays bare the old Black Friday model. Up to 72% of us have made unplanned purchases during sales events with 60% later regretting having done so. Two-thirds do not trust the pre-sale prices displayed. Those figures should embarrass every retailer that ever inflated a recommended price in October to engineer a ‘bargain’ in November.
Faced with that, Irish consumers are finally pushing back. This is not penny-pinching. It is a collective loss of faith in the entire spectacle. Shoppers are researching earlier, making lists, and buying primarily for Christmas (83%, well above the European average of 78%. Impulse purchases persist though, at 37%, but they are declining and returns are down. In short, we as consumers are becoming harder to manipulate.
Retailers know this. PwC’s John O’Loughlin warns that only those offering genuine value, transparent pricing and seamless online and in-store experiences will retain loyalty. It seems the days of fake urgency and inflated baselines are numbered.
The weekend itself, however, is not going away. Black Friday will survive with 62% of us still planning to buy something, and the weekend remains a critical revenue spike for many businesses. But its character is changing. The event that has encouraged feckless over-spending is being repurposed as a disciplined pre-Christmas stock-up.
That is a healthy correction. A society that treats a manufactured shopping frenzy as the high point of its year has lost perspective. When household budgets are under real strain, the proper response is not to spend more because a countdown timer says we must, it is to spend only what is necessary and only on what is needed.
Ireland’s shoppers have reached that conclusion without sermons from economists or regulators. Simply because bills must be paid and January credit-card statements are brutal.
The great Black Friday delusion, that happiness arrives in next-day delivery boxes, is fading. In its place is something more mature, selective, deliberate, and grounded in reality. And that feels like progress.
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