Estimated 6-minute read
With Black Friday just around the corner, we let our inner buyer fully out of its cage. Black Friday means shopping season, everybody knows that. Most of us seize this opportunity to buy that pipe or grinder that has been sitting in our shopping cart since forever.
However, we need to be completely honest and tackle a tiny issue: There’s no doubt that holidays such as Cyber Monday and Black Friday have become days where overconsumption thrives. This is just a fact that we can’t ignore anymore, since it has become the norm, and in most cases, it brings more problems than solutions.
The goal of this article is not by any means to force you to stop participating in these kinds of sales, it’s to make you take a step back and reconsider your Black Friday shopping habits; with those in mind, we can shift to a more conscious focus when it comes to shopping and buying weed accessories. It will even truly make you save money.
The Origins of Black Friday
This holiday’s origins are found in the United States, dating back to the mid 1960s as a post Thanksgiving sale. Good On You mentions that police officers began claiming this phrase when they saw the large crowds creating traffic jams with people all over the sidewalk. These crowds were gathering to do their Christmas shopping just after Thanksgiving holidays came to an end.
Despite this holiday being born in the US, globalization and the world wide web have pushed retail stores from all around the planet to follow in this country’s footsteps and offer their consumers discounts for at least one day a year. Companies have one big goal during Black Friday: to attract more customers and give them good deals that will make them stuff their shopping carts – physically or digitally.
Ideally we should use this holiday as an opportunity to buy what we need, but sometimes the pressure is too much and we end up giving in to shopping for unnecessary stuff. My hot take about our problem is the following: we don’t buy mindfully, and consequently, our wallet and our planet end up as collateral damage.
Why Black Friday Is Harmful to Our Planet
Let’s go back in time to November 2020; most of the world was in a dramatic lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and online shopping was marvelously thriving. According to Eco Cart, Northamerican consumers spent $9 billion dollars online during Black Friday 2022 – and that’s just from one country in the world! Can you imagine the pollution that our environment faced altogether?
In the United Kingdom alone, Black Friday 2020 emitted 429,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. This is the equivalent of 435 return flights from London to New York, Eco Cart added. The Guardian revealed that back in Black Friday 2017, a diesel truck left Amazon warehouses every 93 seconds.
Black Friday involves more transactions than usual, which leads to more transportation and delivery trucks set on the roads to meet customer’s demands, which gives way to more carbon emissions that our planet needs to endure.
Socially, there’s also the problem with overworking hours, outsourced labors to other countries for less pay, and the twisted belief we have so deeply rooted, where our value is based on how much we spend to buy more things and feel better about ourselves.
I know this is all deeply overwhelming and you just came for a few tips, but hear me out.. We’re just humans going along with the flow. As global inflation rises, prices begin to go up, and our natural response is to hunt for discounts and good shopping deals. God knows we are not immune to those, and most of us just take Black Friday as it is: an opportunity to buy what we need at an (allegedly) lower price.
The good news is that there are excellent ways in which we can shop smart; as a result, I guarantee that you’ll feel better about our environment and yourself.
Shop Smart For Weed Accessories
If you have been on the lookout for certain weed accessories, you’re just in time to set these tips into motion and make the most out of Black Friday in a responsible way. Remember that change starts with ourselves!
Make a budget
The first step is to look at your finances and ask yourself: How much am I willing to spend on that grinder?
In this case, a grinder’s price varies from $27 dollars and up to $1500 for a different number of reasons. When doing research for the product you want to buy, always look at the features that each grinder has to offer. Sometimes the cheapest one isn't right for you.
Let’s say you’ve been looking for a grinder that stores kief and decide to go for one with a reasonable price, but it doesn’t store kief in an efficient way. If your budget allows, you can upgrade your purchase to one that has better and more functionable features, like this grinder that slices weed in just the right way. That way you’ll buy one product instead of two, or three, or god knows how much… In addition, you’ll save precious time when doing this activity.
Make a list of what you want to buy so you can avoid impulse buying
Impulse buying is a real thing. Every Black Friday the shopping deals get more and more tempting. Not to mention the “sale ends soon” advertisements that are meant to put pressure on customers; again, we’ve all been there.
As Forbes says, “if it’s not something you need to get, buying it on sale doesn’t mean you are actually saving money.” Buying something you don’t need will just make you spend more money than you first intended to. Do not fall into the trap!
Research prices now on the items you want to buy
Sometimes retail companies will put a fake Black Friday discount with the objective of tricking customers to think that their holiday deal is a good one, but in reality you’re not buying cheaper. Make sure to check prices beforehand in order to make sure it’s actually a real discount; not all Black Friday deals are good ones!
Make sure the payments are secure
If you’re buying online, make sure to research a new website beforehand, read the comments on the product and visit the payments and shippings section. When surfing for Black Friday discounts, it’s easy to be swept away to sites you don’t actually know; some of them may not be reliable.
Consider how long you want your product to last
This is a very important point, since you don’t want to be buying this product annually on every Black Friday.
According to Phys, a report suggested that 80% of Black Friday purchases are thrown away after one or zero uses. If we add up the incalculable amount of products that are made and designed with unsustainable materials, imagine how much damage we’re doing to the environment by throwing away that single use product. In most cases, reusable products are more expensive because they’re made out of great materials that will make your product last longer.
Here at HØJ we use reusable materials, biodegradable plastics and conflict free trees for our hemp filters; most of our products are packed in cork since it’s antibacterial, flame retardant and 100% renewable. Plus, we have a lifetime warranty and we’ll fix anything that is our fault. If you want quality and durability, you’ve come to the right place. Consider our products for your Black Friday shopping, we won’t disappoint you.
Author: Mary Jane
Consumer. 10 Ways to shop smart on Black Friday. Consumer. Retrieved from https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/10-ways-to-shop-smart-on-black-friday
Eco Cart. Green is The New Black (Friday). Retrieved from https://ecocart.io/green-is-the-new-black-friday/
Frazier, L. (2019) 10 Tips For Smart Shopping On Black Friday. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizfrazierpeck/2019/11/22/10-tips-for-smart-shopping-on-black-friday/?sh=1bcfaf4f1420
Rauturier, S. (2021). Stop Before You Shop: The Issues With Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Good On You. Retrieved from https://goodonyou.eco/issues-with-black-friday/
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