Holding Black Friday in Iran at the same time as other countries in the world always brings criticism; But why are these criticisms raised and how true are they?
According to the IDEA, Black Friday is the day when goods are auctioned in the United States and many other countries so that people from many countries around the world can make discounted purchases in the last days of the year. For several years, this tradition has entered the country through online stores, but it always has critics.
Many believe that the considered discounts are not real discounts and Black Friday in Iran is not implemented as it should be. How true are these criticisms and what causes many users to raise them every year?
In the early nineties, the country’s e-commerce market became hot and big investors entered it. Bamilo and Digikala were competing with each other, and the term “Harajome” was first seen in Bamilo’s Black Friday campaign ads. Other slogans such as “Shopping Friday” and “Black Friday” etc. appeared in the advertising campaign of other online stores, but the fact is that in those years, many problems were observed such as sites being deleted and applications being unavailable.
This issue has been resolved over time and now fewer sites face technical problems when starting their auction. Also, the number of online stores that are added to the Black Friday campaign organizers increases every year; But the incident that is currently plaguing this global event in Iran revolves around other issues: prices and time of holding.
Every year, when online stores start their Black Friday campaign, users share various screenshots of auctioned products that are not so discounted. Some discounts are two to five percent, and some, although discounted, can be found in other online stores at lower prices.
The fact is that this issue has several reasons and the main reason is that we do not have many manufacturers in the country and most of the products that are auctioned on Black Friday are imported goods. In fact, importers and retailers have to give discounts on their goods, and this makes them unable to apply good discounts on goods. More than 95% of the producers of these goods do not have commercial activities in Iran, and the few goods that can be heavily discounted are domestically produced goods.
Books, domestically produced clothes or domestically produced toys and household appliances produced by domestic companies are among these items and sometimes they get discounts of over 30-40%. By looking at the discounted items, it can be seen that many fast-moving goods also have good discounts these days, which should be said that these items are also considered domestic production.
Importers have a certain profit margin in most goods, and after buying goods from these economic operators, retailers are forced to sell the goods at a profit; Even with a small profit. The same issues are more noticeable in various goods, especially electronic goods, which have a large share in the country’s imports.
The important point is that each importer imports the goods in different time frames and therefore the same goods may be priced at different prices; Because these sellers generally do not pay attention to the current price of the dollar. It should also be said that due to the fact that these goods have different guarantees in the country (or some have no guarantee), different prices are also placed on them.
The second point about holding Black Friday in Iran is the calendar issue. Celebrating Black Friday in the world is due to the weeks at the end of the year and the arrival of Christmas. In fact, it can be said that Black Friday is very similar to our Iranian Eid night market; With the difference that there is no special occasion in Iran at the end of November and the first days of December. Coinciding with Black Friday in the first days of December is not compatible with people’s pockets and calendar relationships in Iran.
Black Friday is around the time many people haven’t received their paychecks; They don’t wait for a special day such as Eid holidays, summer holidays, the beginning of the school year, etc., and no one even looks to buy seasonal clothes, because usually winter clothes are also bought some time later. On Yalda night, Internet businesses in Iran also go to hold online auction sales campaigns, but the reality is that this day is not very popular among Arabs.
Neither in the first of December nor in the end of December, the companies are not busy with stock management, and applying discounts in these two periods of time is not justified by the sellers. Failure to apply discounts on the part of sellers will cause Black Friday to not be held in Iran as it should be and its correct time will be postponed to another day; Days like new year’s eve market, which has seen extensive discounts in the physical market for a long time, and now for a few years, its range has reached online stores as well.
According to the statistics published by various institutions of the private and public sector, the Eid night market has always been the most popular market in the country and people show favor to it. The statistics of postal companies such as Tipax and Postex and the National Post Company itself report the growth in the number of parcels sent, and reports such as Digikala’s report as the largest online store in the country or the report of the Electronic Commerce Development Center also indicate that the most online sales occur in the month of March.
None of these statistics indicate the increasing growth of sales in December, and this shows that the timing of Black Friday may be suitable in the world, but in Iran it is not a good opportunity for buyers (and of course sellers).
Of course, the final point and the other point that harms the discount nature of Black Friday in the country is the profit seeking of some sellers. With the growth of online marketplaces and the entry of all people into the category of e-commerce, as well as the growth of sales of businesses active in social networks, practically every person can be active in this field.
The large number of statistical population of online sellers makes a limited number of them seek profit and actually make the sweetness of discounts bitter for customers. This group of people welcome this global campaign by making the goods more expensive before the Black Friday campaign starts and creating false discounts on the goods, and they are mainly identified by smart buyers and experience less sales.
Finally, it should not be forgotten that basically not everyone is going to get access to big Black Friday discounts. There is a lot of fighting and arguing in all stores over Black Friday deals, and there is always a small percentage of the population that gets significant discounts. But this is not the reason to ignore the weak points of setting up these campaigns by different internet sites.
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