Martine St-Victor: My complicated relationship with Black Friday

As this Super Bowl of shopping days approaches, I wrestle between supporting the retail industry and resisting buying yet more stuff.

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Pierre-Yves McSween is an accountant and a professor in Montreal. He’s also a TV host and a radio columnist. But for many who follow him, he’s first and foremost the author of the book En as-tu vraiment besoin?, published in 2016. The book’s title translates to Do You Really Need That? Addressing the province’s consumption habits and its financial illiteracy, McSween helps us rethink how we spend and how we invest. 

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The book has been a great success and its French title has somewhat entered the zeitgeist or, at the very least, it has made its way to many people’s psyche — particularly when on the cusp of making a fiscally irresponsible purchase. 

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Black Friday — Nov. 24 — is almost here, as made evident by the innumerable ads we’ve been inundated with. Over the years, I’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with this Super Bowl of shopping days. I’ve wrestled between supporting the retail industry during this period representing, in some cases, the most important month — with December — for sales, and resisting buying yet more stuff.

We may want that (very) big-screen TV or the new “it” cardigan, but most likely, we don’t really need them. Still, the signs indicating store closures and news of brands filing for bankruptcy seem almost as numerous as those announcing sales. This is where lies my complex relationship with Black Friday. I am a champion of entrepreneurship and of businesses, particularly if they are Canadian. The retail industry employs about 2.26 million people across the country and I don’t want any of them to lose their jobs because of slower sales and decreased revenue. 

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In the same breath, the consequences of over-consuming are enough to give anyone vertigo. The United Nations has estimated that approximately 10 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions could be attributed to the fashion industry. Those emissions are projected to increase by 50 per cent by the end of the decade. As someone who loves clothes and good deals, I know I’m part of the problem. 

Many brands have made remarkable adjustments to their production to reduce their carbon footprints. Others have added pre-owned clothing from past collections to their current inventory. Adopting such circular economy measures minimizes waste and is part of the solution. 

But beyond the mechanics, shouldn’t more brands also change their philosophy of Black Friday?  

As a province, 63 per cent of us trust businesses. That is more than we trust the government (60 per cent) and the media (59 per cent). That trust comes with responsibility, particularly in this time of high financial anxiety that affects almost half of Quebecers. Leaders in retail have certainly felt that in their sales numbers but the responsibility is to acknowledge that pushing sales in incessant advertising may not be the right thing to do at the moment, with household debt up 4.2 per cent in Canada over last year.

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In an ideal world, influential retail banners would go from “buy this at half price” to “don’t buy this now; you don’t really need it.” Of course, this would come with a risk. Collectively, we don’t fancy the implication that others know what’s best for us and we resist.

I remember the public backlash when business powerhouse and then New York mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a cap on container sizes for soft drinks sold in restaurants, fast-food joints and other places. Bloomberg knew sugary drinks were a major culprit in the city’s obesity problems that harmed productivity and the health care system. In the end, a judge struck down the proposal. Today, New York is the 88th most overweight city in the U.S., out of over 100,000. 

In retrospect, 10 years later, who really needs a 16-ounce sugary drink? May our needed consumption adjustments take less time.

Martine St-Victor is the general manager of Edelman Montreal and a media commentator. Instagram and X: martinemontreal

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