We've all done it before, beg your mom to buy the latest fashionable console, the new playmobiles or even the fashionable clothes in college. No need to do a master's degree in private law to become a little lawyer and plead your case when you are a child. So between increase in purchasing power and increase in “waste power” there is a fine line.
Black Friday (or Black Friday) is a period of strong off-sale promotions . This day encourages overconsumption "in case I need a food processor that does the housework, massages the little toes and washes the children"...
We suggest you understand a little more about Black Friday, its origin, what is happening on the side of brands, legislation and to go around what certain brands offer to avoid this phenomenon of hyper consumption. Let's go ?
The origins of Black Friday
Black Friday comes from the United States. This promotional day takes place on the Friday following Thanksgiving at the end of November. Black Friday appeared in the 1950s in the United States and was an opportunity for Americans to take a day off to enjoy a longer weekend and start Christmas shopping. And as we are often inspired by American culture, it would have been strange if this famous Black Friday did not cross the Atlantic. So, with paddles and breaststroke, Black Friday hit the French coasts in the 2010s. It's a rather recent phenomenon, and its notoriety really started to gain momentum from 2014. Today Today, Black Friday even extends into a weekend that ends with “Cyber Monday” which allows prices to be lowered further on the following Monday.
This Black Friday is a black weekend for the planet and the environment. We are often already well equipped and this day is intended to encourage purchases. Some brands highlight their new manufacturing process, a new “greener” feature or a “free and more responsible” delivery service. Unfortunately, this is a greenwashing technique to consume more and ease your conscience.
For the anecdote: “ A French person has an average of 51 kg of clothes ”.
In carbon weight this represents 1.3 tonnes of CO2 emissions. We are all full of contradictions, but this is beyond comprehension.
Black Friday for brands
Black Friday allows brands to cut prices outside the sales period. -60%, -70% and even -90%, a little more and the product disappears completely... Some sometimes produce clothes especially for this event, a few weeks before. Delusional, isn't it?
To give you some concrete examples:
In China, the weeks preceding these events are called “Black Season”. Dark season when work intensifies to the same extent that working conditions and the environment deteriorate. All this for the same salary (which is already very low, even indecent).
Added to these conditions is the pressure that employees have to deal with : one mistake and they are fired. As often, the workers live in the distant countryside, they eat and sleep on site to ensure a substantial hourly volume. The icing on the cake, they are not allowed to leave their workplace and their identity papers are confiscated to ensure maximum performance and zero absenteeism.
On the side of Uzbekistan, a country well known for its cotton cultivation, the government issues decrees to allow children over 5 years old to leave school and go to work in the fields for picking. Yes yes, we are in 2022…
And the legislation in all this?
On the side of the law, we distinguish this promotion day with the sales period.
According to article 442 of the commercial code: “ is punished by a fine of €15,000 the fact by any person of imposing, directly or indirectly, a minimum character on the resale price of a product or good , at the price of a service or at a commercial margin” .
It is only during the sales period that traders are allowed to sell at a loss, ie twice a year. Selling at a loss... You better understand why the system is not working properly. Sellers choose the reduction they want by respecting the decree of March 11, 2015 which requires that the initial price be clearly displayed and that the seller can justify it. This does not prevent some from artificially inflating reference prices just before Black Friday to be able to offer "false reductions" on D-Day. Do you have the references?
Oh, what are the others doing?
Patagonia, discretion to go to oblivion?
We remember Patagonia's shock but very well thought-out campaign in 2011 with its famous phrase “don't buy this jacket”. This campaign had toured the world until it made the front page of the New York Times. Last year Patagonia remained discreet and chose not to change anything on its website: no promotion, not a word about black friday. The goal: to remove this habit from the heads of the French.
With Aigle, Black Friday flies away
Thanks to the arrival of the new CEO Sandrine Advisor, many profound changes have taken place at Aigle: elimination of air transport of products, work on the sourcing of materials, certification of manufacturing partners in Asia and bringing together production units. in France. For Black Friday 2021, Aigle had taken a radical decision: to close its 48 stores in France and its e-shop . The website directed to the “Second Souffle” second-hand offer page. A fresh wind that feels good!
Make Friday Green Again launched by Faguo
The Faguo brand co-founder is behind the Make Friday Green Again initiative. This collective aims to recall the disastrous consequences of Black Friday. More than 1200 brands are already mobilized. The latter sign an open letter addressed to the President of the Republic denouncing all the consequences that Black Friday has on the planet. The collective invites citizens to consume more responsibly. The brands that are part of it commit to not doing Black Friday in 2022 and the years that follow.
The black FridOé
At Oé, we want to draw a definitive line on Black Friday. By being the first wine brand to put the deposit back in place , we are more committed than ever to reuse.
The principle ? The bottles are received before being washed, cleaned and returned to the producers. Producers of returnable bottles can then bottle them and make them usable again. It's a cycle. This economic system limits wastage and waste and reduces our environmental impact.
For Black Friday, we choose not to promote because that would mean negotiating prices with our suppliers and our winegrowers. And as we want everyone to be remunerated at fair value, we are not changing our prices.
