Hello, everyone and welcome back to a new video Sean's, the name and today we need to talk about Black Friday first off. Hopefully, all of you had a phenomenal Thanksgiving. It actually always blows my mind that we go from being as thankful as possible on one day to the next getting bodied by 300-pound middle-aged moms. So he can get some discounts.

America, baby. Okay. So if you don't know, I'm one of the guys behind the brand Direction desk we're an ergonomic office furniture company, we specialize in high-end standing desk. Why am I telling you this well we're constantly weighing the pros and cons of certain strategies to sell our products as efficient as possible? One of these components is always going to be about price.

How cheaply are we willing to sell our products to make sure we're still getting enough profit to run the business? Hence, while we're talking about Black Friday today, products seem to be discounted so much that every consumer thinks they are getting the best deal possible out of that. Given situation, no businesses are designed to profit off you. Their sole purpose is to make sure they're on the winning side of that situation when you buy that product, otherwise they go out of business. So today I want to show you why 95 % of Black Friday deals are an absolute scam and don't get me wrong.

I love saving money. Okay, I'm quite the saving Slayer, not a couponer, a saving Slayer, but I'm gon na explain this whole situation to you from a perspective of a brand, not just a salty consumer who doesn't want to deal with the pushing and shoving a Black Friday. Okay. So, let's start with what Black Friday is and when it started.

If you, google, the origination story of Black Friday, there's all sorts of crazy stuff like how it begins way back in 1869, when there were some shady dudes who created a boom and bust, basically tanking gold prices, which led to commodity prices, falling and being discounted by 50 % - I personally think that's a coincidence, though. The major Black Friday term started in 1966, when the Philadelphia police department used that term to describe all the traffic jams and crowding in downtown stores. So we're going to call it that Black Friday is essentially an absolute chaos day when everyone starts to overspend on their holiday budgets, not getting crazy good deals on products, that's just what we think of it today, because that's what brands and retailers have conditioned us to Think like, if you actually look at the data of when consumers do their holiday shopping, it's pretty impressive that the weekend after Thanksgiving so three days accounts for 15 % of the entire holiday shopping period. The holiday shopping period is a hundred days, yet three days accounts for billions and billions of dollars spent.

So I guess the question really is how our retailers and brands able to pull this off while still being profitable. So, to fully understand this, we need to get into the mindset of these major retailers and brands. So, typically, when you go buy a product from let's say, Walmart Target Amazon Best Buy whatever you're buying the product in a retail setting for a retail price, which, typically on most common products, has a 50 % markup. Now that means, if you were to go, buy a 30 pack of beer, let's say but light and you're gon na spend 20 bucks at Walmart to buy it.

Well, that really costs bud ten dollars to make in the cans in the beer itself and in the packaging. So when it's on sale for 10, 20, 30 percent off that profit margin is getting smaller and smaller and that money is coming out of Bud Lights, pocket and I'm not sponsored by Bud Light yet. But what I'm getting at is this same thing is happening on Black Friday. All these crazy deals that you're seeing are digging into the profit margin of these companies and brands.

So they're not going to do something or price a product. That's gon na put them at a significant and major loss right. Their job is to make money and if you're sitting there going well Sean who the hell cares if they're making less money, I'm still getting a wicked good deal on this product and that's what matters and like you're, right kind of the decisions that companies make on Black Friday are super strategic, so, for example, with Direction desk. Whenever we run a discount on a certain product or products, we've got a specific strategy in mind with that discount.

We don't just put a discount up because we enjoy making less money like what or because it's Black Friday like know most retailers and brands will heavily discount products that they do not want anymore or that they can get you in the doorway so that you spend Money on different products that have way higher profit margins, for example, here's one of our flagship products, our 60-inch standing desks, and to be totally honest with you. We really don't make much money on this product because it's super expensive to ship and we're a newer company in a pretty saturated market with a bunch of really shabby desks. So we have at a lower price point than we'd like, but it is what it is. Now we make majority of our money off of the accessory products.

You know the things that make standing desks even more enjoyable to use same thing about how, if you were to go to McDonald's and buy a cheeseburger, you can buy that cheeseburger for dirt cheap, but come on who's. Gon na buy just a cheeseburger. You got to get the fries in the drink and that's where majority of the profit margin lies. So the really good products aka our standing desks - will never be heavily discounted and the same thing goes for Black Friday deals, sure you might get 10 % or 20 % off on some decent products, but really where majority of the I grabbing atten stuff goes.

Is the door Busters and those are absolute trash so, first and foremost, that's kind of the most obvious scam of Black Friday. Ok, it's the door Busters most major retailers always offer crazy deals on TVs and laptops and Printers or like whatever, what most people aren't realizing with these door. Busters, and these crazy good deals is that a lot of those products are old news, they're, old tech or old products that no one really buys anymore and that brand or retailer has a massive warehouse of thousands and hundreds of thousands of this product that they cannot Sell so what do they do? They offer it for a stupid, cheap price and everyone's like? Oh, we got to go buy that it's a really good deal when in reality, it's probably a product that, like no one wanted to buy for a reason plus like the door. Busters are usually from no-name brands.

That probably won't last you very long and, like all honestly, you probably shouldn't be buying those products. But let's say it is from a well-established brand. Ok, let's say a printer you're like oh I'm, getting this awesome HP or like canon printer and it's a good deal and I'm gon na go, buy it well. Printers are not designed to make money on the sale of the actual printer they're, designed to make money on the actual ink cartridges that you are constantly buying to put into the printer or, let's take an Xbox or a Playstation.

For example. The actual console is not designed to make a ton of money. It's designed to get a lot of people interested to buy that console. Then, once you buy that console you're buying all of these other accessories, the accessories are what makes the company real money.

So, let's do like a real-life example of this okay. Let's say you save 50 bucks on on an Xbox this Black Friday. I don't even know what deals are out there for the X boxes, but, let's just say you save 50 bucks on an Xbox okay. Well now, you're caught spending 50 dollars on xbox live another hundred bucks on Xbox controllers, maybe 50 bucks on a cheap headset, and you still need some games to play that 50 dollars that you save from buying.

That console ended up making the company so much more money in the long run, so sure they made a smaller profit margin on the console hands down. They definitely took a smaller profit on that, but they're still making tons of money on all of these other products. That aren't really discounted aka the fries to the cheeseburger, not even to mention that those companies are always releasing new consoles like upgraded or entirely new consoles in general. So they're, probably just trying to offload some older consoles to make room for the new ones.

But the next game of Black Friday is the over indulging most items on Black Friday that are actually purchased we're, not even on someone's radar to buy it's like when you go into Harbor Freight. If you've ever been there, Harbor Fricks like this knockoff version of Home Depot, it's great they've got tons of ridiculous deals on no-name and like cheap products, but I honestly love it. It's actually pretty awful. I go into that store to get something cheap like a five-gallon bucket and then I end up walking out with a brand new drill, a couple hammers and like a really bad ass welding helmet, I don't even have a welder, but that literally happens every single time.

I walk in there because I am a super sucker for deals, and this is exactly what happens on Black Friday, which is why I have to turn my Wi-Fi off and myself in my house, but in all seriousness like overindulging, is a real issue with Black Friday. That a lot of people run into so these retailers are loving. It they'll get you in the door with maybe one of these door, Busters or some product that you actually need and then they're able to offload so many products that they don't want anymore, that no one ever really buys in the first place. But they're like hey.

We got to get these things off. Our shelves will discount it by 30 to 40 percent and these things will fly off the shelves, whereas the rest of the year we'll never sell them, because no one actually needs them. I mean it loke, pretty genius and then lastly, is debt. The scammy part about Black Friday with this one is people are absolutely crazy.

The average US consumer, according to the Washington Post, will spend three hundred and sixty eight dollars on products. In the course of three days and if you're a millennial you'll spend over four hundred dollars, most people can't even afford a weekend like this. So what does most people do? Oh, that's right. They charge a baby.

Sixty percent of people who have an unpaid balance on their credit cards are willing to add to the debt for the holidays like what and to even add on top of that. According to CBS, 48 million Americans are still paying off debt from a last year's holiday season. What what is even wrong with people like what? But retailers love this, because now they can offer you this super sweet and shiny brand specific credit card. So you can't miss out on any of the Black Friday deals.

Oh yeah and they'll also throw in a three twenty percent interest rate with it. Wow get it. What Wow now we'll say that Black Friday does make sense if you've been eyeing a specific product and then it goes on sale for like a decent discount, and you actually have a specific use for that product and yes, Black Friday, could be pretty useful for you. If you only buy that product and not any of the other like baby products that are out there, so if that does pertain to you, then yeah go put on some football padding and show that 300-pound middle-aged mom.

What's up I'll go get that deal, but I guess with all that being said. I am a little bit curious as to which products you bought or got a great deal on this Black Friday weekend. To be totally honest with you, I did buy a few products online over the weekend. It did make sense for me, and sometimes it does sometimes it does so yeah be interested to find out leave a comment down below.

Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed the video if you did smash that like button and subscribe, if you're new around here and other than that I'll see you guys in the next video and Happy Holidays.