Usually by now, I’d have bought some half-price tins of biscuits and boxes of chocolate from the carefully positioned displays that have been in supermarkets since early October. And I’d have been at least once to TK Maxx to buy stocking fillers before the best-value items were sold out.
Viewing myself as a careful Christmas shopper, I also have a stash of unwanted gifts squirrelled away for spontaneous last-minute present-giving should any family member be caught wanting.
But now that my Santa days are over, I buy books and vouchers for restaurants, massage treatments and concert tickets as gifts. And I avoid the gilded retail displays, lavish lights and scintillating decorations that lure us in to shops to spend money on things that recipients often don’t need or even want.
While it is almost impossible to avoid the Black Friday advertising from early November, a recent report from the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) has identified a high level of distrust of the deals on offer during this pre-Christmas period.
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The CCPC research shows that the anticipated individual spend during the Black Friday sales is expected to drop from €431 in 2024 to €334 in 2025. And some 60 per cent of people also admitted regretting a previous unplanned sale purchase during this time.
Furthermore, it is estimated that as many as one in three shoppers send back their Black Friday or Cyber Monday bargains, with Returns Tuesday becoming another significant day in the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy.
The term conspicuous consumption was coined in the 19th century to describe how the then nouveaux riches publicly displayed their social power by purchasing prestigious goods. Then, in the postwar 1950s, consumerism ramped up as manufacturers and retailers offered instant gratification through shopping for stuff.
Globalised production since then means that cheaply made products are transported around the world, often at a high price to the environment. Online shopping – with its free shipping if you add in a few more items – has escalated things even further as courier vans zigzag across the country delivering packages all day every day.
But instead of buying the perfect Christmas jumper, the must-have kitchen gadget or the luxury perfume for your loved one this Christmas, is there another way to support the local economy while not becoming a Christmas grinch?
[ Black Friday is followed by Returns Tuesday. It’s bad for the planetOpens in new window ]
Environmental NGOs and sustainable fashion brands have made efforts to rebrand Black Friday – which falls on November 28th – as Green Friday. Memorable ones include Patagonia’s Don’t Buy This Jacket campaign which encouraged considered consumption rather than compulsive consumption.
In the early 2020s, Canadian beauty company Deciem boycotted Black Friday by closing its physical stores on the day. Instead, it promoted “Slowvember” as a month for “the thinkers, researchers and people who appreciate taking time to pause and reflect before making a decision”.
Skincare brand The Ordinary (whose parent company is Deciem) will be closing shop on Black Friday again this year. In its campaign, launched earlier this year, it reminds consumers not to give in to “cheap creep”, with black and white billboards showing slogans such as “Promo or Fomo”?
The campaign – which offers customers a month-long discount of 23 per cent off purchases – says that it aims to uncover dishonest marketing tactics in the midst of throwaway culture, overconsumption, planned obsolescence and shrinkflation.
But it’s hard not to see these moves as more clever marketing. And, you must ask yourself if it really makes any difference if a few of us opt out of conspicuous consumption and lean into conscious consumption instead.
Even among environmental activists, there is deep disillusionment about ethical shopping. Writing in the midst of the Covid pandemic, American author and journalist Elizabeth L Cline says that “ethical consumption can ultimately serve as a type of delusion or fantasy where we tell ourselves that our economic actions are righteous and that we’re doing our small part to make a difference, even in the face of overwhelming evidence”.
She reminds us that mid-20th century consumer power movements were much more effective. For example, when activists in the US won a total ban on DDT, leading to the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Or, when the American civil rights movement challenged segregation and racist hiring by boycotting white shop owners.
Cline, the author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, goes on to say that in this neoliberal era, we shouldn’t confuse shopping with social change and that legally-enforced environmental regulations will be the only way that fashion brands and other manufacturers embrace more sustainable practices. She advises us to think like consumer activists rather than ethical shoppers.
So, shop ’til you drop this Christmas if you like but spare a thought for the working conditions of those who made the items you purchase and the environmental footprint these products leave behind. And realise that only when the cheapest products are made following strict environmental standards will ethical shopping become the norm.
