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Premieres 24 November 2026 at 6pm UK time
Who's Tricking You? · Episode 11
Who decided the best deals land on one Friday?
Who set the clock on the 'deal of the year'?
How Black Friday got its name from Philadelphia police, how it crossed to Britain, how a 'was' price can be built, and what Which? keeps finding when it checks the deals.
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What the fox said
Who decided the best deals of the year all land on one Friday in November?
Not the shops' accountants. Their marketing teams.
Philadelphia, the 1960s. Police call the day after Thanksgiving Black Friday. Jammed roads, crowds, chaos.
Shops hated the name. So they told a nicer story: it's the day we finally go into the black. Into profit.
Then it crossed the Atlantic. Amazon brought it to Britain around 2010. Supermarkets followed, and so did the crowds.
Now, here's how a deal is built.
Sometimes a price creeps up a few weeks before. Then it comes back down, with a big red was-price beside it.
The consumer group Which? checks these every year.
It keeps finding that nearly all Black Friday deals were the same price, or cheaper, at some other time of year.
The countdown clock. The only three left. The doorbuster. All designed to stop you checking.
The only thing truly limited is your time to think.
So when a sale shouts now or never, ask who set the clock. Keep your nose to the wind.
Sources
- Which? analyses of Black Friday deals between 2020 and 2024 repeatedly found that the large majority were the same price or cheaper at other times in the six months before or after (Which? Black Friday price analyses, 2020–2024).
- In 2023, 98% of the 227 Black Friday deals Which? checked were the same price or cheaper at other times in that period (Which?, 2023).
- Which? has also documented examples of prices being raised before a sale (Which?).
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