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Created Without the Original Holiday from the United States, the Brazilian Black Friday Turned into a Marathon of False Discounts, Marketing Strategies, and Anticipated Consumption that Moves Billions Every Year.
The term Black Friday, which gained traction in Brazilian retail starting in the early 2010s, did not originate from a national tradition nor is it linked to any Brazilian holiday.
The date was imported almost exclusively for commercial purposes, without the cultural context that supports it in the United States. There, major promotions happen always on the Friday following Thanksgiving, a holiday with strong Protestant religious and family character that effectively marks the beginning of the end-of-year shopping season.
In Brazil, since this holiday does not exist and the calendar is predominantly Catholic, the event ended up transforming into a trigger for anticipated consumption and competing for the money of the 13th salary before Christmas.
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Origin and Logic of the Date in the United States
In the United States, the functioning is clear: the country stops on Thursday of Thanksgiving, many people take off on Friday, and retail takes advantage of this high traffic day to offer real discounts.
The logic is twofold. On one hand, stores use the date to turn over stock, especially electronics, TVs, and white goods.
On the other, they prepare the stock and cash for Christmas sales. Since the American consumer is already in the holiday mood, gathering with family and planning gifts, commerce can concentrate large volumes of sales and, consequently, offer more aggressive price cuts.
In this structure, Black Friday makes sense: there’s a holiday, people are in the streets, there’s a Christmas atmosphere, there’s retailer organization, and there’s a greater tradition of transparency about the price.
It’s an event that fits within their calendar and aligns with the consumption behavior of that market.
How Brazilian Retail Claimed the Date for Itself
In Brazil, the movement was different. According to the consulted account, chains like Ricardo Eletro began to invest heavily in TV campaigns and communication to “embed” the idea of a national Black Friday in the consumer’s mind.
The goal was simple: whoever entered first would capture the money that families traditionally set aside for December. Since Christmas has always been the major anchor of Brazilian retail, anticipating consumption meant getting ahead of competitors.
In the first year when few companies did Black Friday, those who did not participate saw revenues drop. This forced other chains to also promote discounts in November.
From there, a domino effect was created: if everyone was going to have promotions on the last Friday of November, those who wanted to attract consumers still with money needed to go first. Campaigns for “Black November” then emerged, followed by actions throughout November, and more recently, offers even in October.
The result is that Brazilian commerce has artificially stretched a date that, in its origin, was concentrated on a single day. The aim was not cultural, but financial: to anticipate the end-of-year revenue, capture the customer’s credit limit before the competitor, and seize the 13th salary.
Cultural Detachment and Loss of Meaning
The material highlights that, unlike the United States, Brazil does not have a real end-of-year atmosphere in November. Nevertheless, stores and shopping malls began setting up Christmas trees in October, supermarkets started selling panettone well in advance, and retail, in general, tries to keep consumers in “Christmas mode” for up to three months.
The author assesses that this tends to wear out the commemorative dates themselves because the excess of anticipation makes it so that when Christmas actually arrives, it no longer has the same impact.
There is also criticism of the type of importation made. Instead of bringing the holiday that gives meaning to the date (Thanksgiving), Brazilian commerce only brought the sales instrument. And it did so without creating a basis of price transparency, without reinforcing oversight mechanisms, and without agreeing on the rules of the game with consumers.
Recurring Issues in Brazilian Black Friday
The text points out a series of distortions that have come to characterize the date in the country:
- price increases in the weeks before to simulate major cuts on the day;
- label re-tagging;
- disorganization of websites and system crashes;
- reduced stocks and late deliveries;
- absence of a holiday that justifies the buying volume;
- widespread distrust among consumers.
Over time, this combination generated an ironic perception of the date on social media and solidified the reputation that Brazilian Black Friday offers “false discounts.” The criticism is even stronger when the author observes that, in recent years, even digital products — which do not have physical stock and do not need to “dispose” of merchandise — have started to copy the logic of Black Friday just to take advantage of the high public attention moment.
How Consumers Can Protect Themselves
Despite the critical view, the material states that it is still possible to benefit from Black Friday in Brazil, but only with an active approach. The first recommendation is to reverse the logic: do not go online “to see what’s available” and only buy what was already planned.
The guidance is clear: choose the product beforehand and, on the day, check if the price really dropped. If the price is higher than what you intended to pay, do not buy — even if the ad offers bonuses, gifts, or “5 more courses.”
For this, the author suggests tracking price histories on comparison sites like Zoom and Buscapé, which are now owned by the same company.
These platforms allow you to see the price behavior over the last months and, according to the account, clearly show that many items drop in price for a time but begin to rise 30 or 40 days before Black Friday just to return to the previous level as if it were a promotion on the day itself.
Creating alerts on these tools is, therefore, a way to verify if the discount is real.
Another recommendation is not to “prepare to spend”: do not anticipate payments to free up credit, do not browse offer sites if there’s no purchase planned, and, if necessary, even reduce contact with advertising — the author even suggests that a good purchase for the period is subscribing to YouTube Premium to stop seeing ads that encourage consumption.
The Position of Those Who Sell Financial Education
The text also records the position of an investment school, UVP, which decided not to hold Black Friday. The justification is for consistency: if the focus is to teach people to spend responsibly, it makes no sense to create a promotion that leads students to buy impulsively.
The institution claims to maintain the same price throughout the year, does not penalize those who joined earlier, and only intends to make adjustments for inflation at another time.
The author recalls that in previous years, they had conducted a “reverse promotion” — increasing the price on the day — just to show the public how people buy without analyzing.
There were even cases of customers who made the purchase, received part of the money back, and viewed the situation as an educational experience. The conclusion, however, was that the action did not educate enough, and therefore it will not be repeated.
The school also states that it accepts students who took months to make the decision and that it does not engage in artificial scarcity like “last spots for today.” According to the account, this preserves trust: those who buy earlier do not find out later that someone paid half the price because it was “Black Friday.”
Financial Education and Setting an Example at Home
In the final part, the text expands the argument to the family. The date can serve to teach children and teenagers that consumption does not have to follow the retail calendar.
It is possible to celebrate Christmas, have family meals, have a religious moment, and buy gifts later when prices are lower. The idea is to show that not everything that the market announces as urgent is actually urgent.
The thread of the critique is that, in Brazil, Black Friday has become a “Holiday of Empty Consumerism”, disconnected from any social, religious, or even logistical meaning. And that, in light of this, the best defense for the consumer is information, price comparison, and discipline to say “no” when the promotion is not a true promotion.
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