You are in a Black Friday without much discount

It was not yet 8.30 in the morning and some vehicles were already queuing up at the door of the car park of some shopping centers on the islands with the aim of being the first to enter and access discounts that, although widely advertised, billboards and hype in recent days, were less bulky than other years. In most shops, the discounted prices ranged between 15% and 20%, there were some that went up to 50% but only in the second unit and in most of them, the discounts only affected certain items but they work as a "great claim" that they always take "to snack on something".

This year's Black Friday has managed to awaken consumerism that had been asleep for a year as a result of the covid and the canaries have taken to the streets to buy. In previous years there were many who decided to take advantage of this date to buy Christmas gifts and thus save a few euros. This year, this strategy has been added to the fear of shortages and running out of gifts due to the supply crisis that exists worldwide and thus, yesterday was a Black Friday of queues at the door of the shops waiting to enter and waiting to pay up to an hour.

The president of the Triana Zone Entrepreneurs Association, Carlos Bethencourt, highlighted this circumstance yesterday. "It had been a long time since people were seen waiting on the street to enter," indicated Bethecourt, who estimates that the influx of public and sales were yesterday between 10% and 15% higher than 2020, and all despite the copious rain that fell yesterday to the capital of Gran Canaria.

Alexis Herrera and Vanesa Santana arrived at one of the establishments in the Las Arenas shopping center at ten in the morning and managed to leave an hour later with their purchase: a belt. «We have been here for an hour and we have only bought one thing. There are too many people and the offers are not so good, "said Alexis. As an example of this, they point to a resin bench that they had been looking at for days at a price of 19.95 euros in one of the establishments in the center and that yesterday, with Black Friday, was as a "super offer" at the same price. "It has been surprising when we went and they sold it to us as the super price today at the same price it had days ago," said his partner Vanesa Santana. Both agree in pointing out that they expected "less people" than they had found. They had managed to park at 9.40 after going around the parking lot several times.

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Beatriz Sosa was surprised by the number of cars and people in the mall. She had arrived at 8.30 and says that she was surprised to see "people running" when they opened the parking doors when the discounts "were not that bad."

Sheila Rodríguez, who is a regular at Black Friday, pointed out yesterday that "only" some discounts were good. In her opinion, "we've gone a bit crazy with shopping because of scarcity and the fear of running out of things."

The good rhythm of shopping was the dominant note in all the commercial areas of the islands. The director of Communications and External Relations of El Corte Inglés, Manuel Marrero, indicated yesterday that, despite the rain, Black Friday had worked very well both in terms of foot traffic and sales, which suggests a good Christmas campaign . Although none of the business sources consulted wanted to detail whether sales this year had exceeded those of 2019, before the pandemic, studies carried out by different organizations suggest that spending will increase this year.

Thus, the Cetelem Observatory, the study unit of BNP Paribas Personal Finance, estimates that the Canary Islands will be the region in which spending will grow the most this year, with an increase of 35% compared to 2020 and 13% if compare with 2019. Canarians who spend this Black Friday will spend an average of 360 euros compared to the 261 of the national average.

Given the return of consumption and spending, consumer associations such as Adicae have warned that all offers can become a problem for consumers «in a context of price increases, family budgets on the edge due to the rise in electricity and fuels”, and “not very transparent” products. Adicae ensures that the "aggressive" campaigns incite "dangerous" consumerism that leads to purchasing unnecessary products.