I am going to stop numbering these.

Disclaimer: There is a discount link for Enchanted Tools and Undead at Every Size at the end of the article. You can enjoy (or bear with) the random rambling before checking it out, or just go there right now.

The last few years, Black Friday (and Cyber Monday) has become a thing in Greece. Vendors, large and small, have decided to use Black Friday as one of the latest marketing trends in order to give the people what they want; stuff in good prices. Or maybe not. Now that the dust has settled, I decided it would be interesting to share with you the situation in Greece when it comes to Black Friday. Why? Because, let’s say, things are ugly.

Let’s start with the concept of Black Friday. This is a sale that takes place during one day. Right? Well, here we have a Black Friday week, or even two weeks. Why? We like to take our time in some things. Especially in the case of some really bad (but very big and well known) vendors. They turn this in to a 7-15 day thing just for fun.

Moreover, a pattern has emerged the last 3 years. This isn’t exclusive to Black Friday but people have pointed it out during this sale because of the nature of the sale. Vendors increase their prices to an absurd amount before the Black Friday WEEK just so they can show the sales they grace us with. Allow me to demonstrate.

This is a price trend of a random item (probably a tech item – the picture is not mine but it has been confirmed as real). A month ago there was a bump in the price. Maybe vendors could have gotten away with this 10-20 years ago but the magic of the internet allows us to have this graph. And here’s another similar situation.

But an even funnier picture is this one. This is not from a price checking website. This is from a vendor’s website. A month ago the price was 1519 euros. But just for Black Friday, we have the opportunity to acquire this nice looking camera for the exclusive price of 1799 euros. Of course, when the vendor realised their critical failure, they disabled the ability to check the price history of items on sale.

By the way, one of the largest (probably the largest at the moment) price checking websites (and you could also call it a broker/store) in Greece did some analysis in their data in 2021. In 2021’s Black Friday, 10% of the people who bought products through their platform paid a higher price compared to non-sale prices.

That’s why, personally, I don’t tend to buy things during Black Friday. Especially tech! Tech is never actually on sale here. If a price drops that’s because the company itself dropped the price. My local game store runs an actual sale and I love that store so I tend to support it. There’s always something I like on sale.

I know things like that happen everywhere, we are not that special. But it really bothers me that

(a) vendors actually think people will fall for that when it’s so obvious

(b) people actually fall for it even if it’s so obvious

so I just wanted to let off some steam.

Because I hate this idiotic situation here’s a discount link for Enchanted Tools and here’s another one for Undead at Every Size. It’s a bit over 50% off. It will run until the 11th of December I think (I did this on a whim, don’t expect me to be precise). I do this because, as I said, I hate this situation but also because I like you. And when you come here and read my random ramblings, I am grateful for that.

And until next time, have fun!

P.S: If you want me to talk more about Greece (not just the bad stuff, we have good stuff as well I promise) that aren’t necessarily related to tabletop gaming, let me know. I have some ideas.