The drumbeat of Black Friday is unrelenting as the global retail sector looks to fill its boots at the expense of consumers. Cantillon’s inbox is overflowing with surveys and studies, all designed to persuade us that this coming weekend is a wonderful opportunity.
The latest, from PwC, which looked at Black Friday shopping habits in five European countries, found the Irish are among the most enthusiastic shoppers on Black Friday, with an average spend here last year of €329 against an average of €268 – in advance of our peers in Germany, France and Italy.
Two-thirds of that is online.
This year, the survey notes, consumers are minded to be more cautious. We all know what happens to the best of intentions when presented with an “unmissable bargain”, but even if we trim our spending by the 14 per cent forecast, to €283 a head, we’ll still be comfortably above the average.
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One way or another, more than six out of 10 Irish consumers are gearing up for the weekend, or have shopped already, given that, for some outlets, this is now a two- or three-week affair.
Amazon, who else, has helpfully published a report, arguing that online shopping is helping to keep prices lower for Irish households.
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Produced by Big Four accountancy firm Deloitte and analysing data over five years to 2024 alongside a survey of 1,000 people, it found that as ecommerce becomes more popular, prices tend to rise more slowly. Specifically, for every 1 per cent increase in online shopping activity, annual inflation decreases by approximately 0.03-0.06 per cent.
The bottom line: Amazon says that, without online commerce, prices would be about 4.1 per cent higher today than they are.
The report is oddly quiet on online scams, which, according to a 2025 Global State of Scams survey of 46,000 people worldwide by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, saw more than one in every two adults scammed in the past year, with more than one in five having money stolen from them.
With Banking and Payments Federation Ireland reporting that eight out of 10 of us plan to shop online in the run-up to Christmas, the important thing is to be careful out there. Whatever those glossy websites might say, ultimately, everyone is only looking out for themselves.
