On November 24, Black Friday will be celebrated, a day that promises reduced prices and special offers to citizens to encourage consumption and start the Christmas shopping season, in which the discounts offered are not always clearly accessible. businesses apply and deceptive practices proliferate that seek to guide the consumer's final decision, according to experts.
Commercial actions that take advantage of the Black Friday claim appear even before the designated date arrives, which is celebrated the Friday following Thanksgiving, an American holiday that occurs every year on the fourth Thursday of November.
Despite its origin, it has established itself in Spain as one of the key dates in the commercial calendar. For the current campaign, 38% of Spaniards plan to spend between 100 and 500 euros in this campaign, 6% raise the range to spending between 500 and 1,000 euros and 11% say they do not have an established limit.
The consumption of technology also stands out, while 72% of Spaniards take advantage of Black Friday discounts to invest in technological products, as can be seen from a study by PcComponentes, prepared in collaboration with the Rey Juan Carlos University.
In such a long period of discounts, in which more companies and different platforms participate every year, some deceptive practices sneak in that are not always easy to identify and that include promotions indicated as discounts that in reality are not such, according to experts. .
This practice is sometimes complemented by fraudulent reviews on websites, where supposed buyers encourage the purchase of certain products, praising their qualities. Far from being something anecdotal, it is a type of deception, which is included in the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and the Unfair Competition Law, which since last year have protected consumers against false reviews, holding responsible for them. the companies that allow them.
To shed some light and offer security to consumers on these dates, and in any other sales period, different tracking services have appeared, which detect items whose price has been increased previously to mark the initial price as a bargain or that, directly , has increased without containing any offers.
Offers, discounts and special prices encourage consumption, and although in times like these they help to find gifts at a good price, they can also cause a headache if you have fallen into any fraudulent or unfair practice. For this reason, it is important to always go, especially if you buy 'online', to trusted stores, that you already know and where purchases have been made before and that offer a customer service managed by experts.
Regardless of where you buy, you must review the purchase conditions, since "you may find great offers on certain websites, but when making the payment the amount is much higher than expected," warns PcComponentes. From this 'eCommerce', specialized in technological products, they advise reviewing issues such as shipping and/or returns, payment facilities or the existence of a replacement guarantee.
Experts also encourage paying attention to sales prices and not just offers, for which price history or online tracking services are especially useful. Finally, they urge you to turn to the real experiences of other buyers and the advice of experts, as they can help determine if the product you are looking for really fits the buyer's needs.
