Tag Archives: sale

Black Friday in 2022 becoming fake

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The famous Black Friday sale has already happened on November 25th. This is a tradition that came to Poland along with other European regions around 2013 from the USA, but not all Polish stores act with customers according to the same rules as American ones. Often, the announced discounts are purely symbolic. It is also a popular opinion among customers that stores increase the prices on purpose to then make a “discount” so that they feel they buy products cheaper, though they might be even paying more than could pay before Black Friday.

Moreover, statistics show that sellers do manipulate buyers. According to the research conducted by Deloitte, in 2021, discounts in “800 surveyed Polish stores averaged 3.6%. Almost 57% of the stores did not prepare any special offers for visitors. In rare cases, discounts reached 5%” (Podczas Tegorocznego Black Friday Średnie Obniżki Cen Sięgnęły 3,4 Proc., 2021). Meaning that the screaming all-around SALE and discounts -70% signs are mock. At the same time, an increase in prices for a third of the studied goods was revealed. The largest discount that was recorded was 36%, although the marketing messages were talking about 70% for buyers.

Buyers themselves seem to feel that stores often treat them dishonestly – according to statistics, interest in Black Friday is falling from year to year. According to the Picodi service, in 2021, “31% of Polish residents expressed their desire to participate in the sale, while a year earlier there were 40% who wanted to participate in the sale” (Black Friday (Czarny Piątek) – Picodi Polska, 2022). Therefore, revealing a great deal of interest fall toward the hoax yearly sales.

As mentioned before, it seems like a common practice in retail to raise prices for goods a few days before Black Friday and then “lower” them on the day of discounts. For example, a tech store can raise the price of a fridge from 2 000 zl to 4 000 zl on Tuesday and lower it to PLN 3 000 on Friday. This will provide a banner showing the “Big discount” of 1 000 zl. The Polish authorities, however, promise to take care of this loophole soon. In Europe, there is a special Omnibus directive that obliges sellers to inform about the prices of goods. It was developed to prevent fraud and also to prevent the purchase of customer reviews. And although it has not yet entered into force in Poland, some stores have been adhering to it for a long time now.

When the directive comes into force, according to research by Sebastian Gorski, shop owners who deceive their customers will face a fine of PLN 20,000. Panstwowa Inspekcja Handlowa will monitor compliance with the terms of the directive. If it turns out that the price of a promotional item has been different in the last 30 days, then the store owner will be in trouble (Górski, 2022).

All in all, I recommend that you refrain from impulsive purchases on Black Friday, and before making a decision to buy a product, check whether it is really participating in the promotion. You can use services like ceneo.pl, skapiec.pl and nokaut.pl, which help you get an idea of ​​how the price of a product has formed in recent months.

Comment your thoughts below, share your valuable opinion with others!

References:

Black Friday (Czarny Piątek) 2022 – Picodi Polska. (2022). Inspiracje. https://www.picodi.com/pl/inspiracje/black-friday

Podczas tegorocznego Black Friday średnie obniżki cen sięgnęły 3,4 proc. (2021, February 9). Deloitte Polska. https://www2.deloitte.com/pl/pl/pages/press-releases/articles/podczas-tegorocznego-Black-Friday-srednie-obnizki-cen-siegnely-3-proc.html

Górski, S. (2022, November 25). To ostatni taki Black Friday. Za rok sklepy nie będą mogły ściemniać z promocjami. CHIP – Technologie Mamy We Krwi! https://www.chip.pl/2022/11/to-ostatni-taki-black-friday-dyrektywa-omnibus

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Global Digital Marketplace (G2A.com Limited)

Reading Time: 2 minutesGlobal Digital Marketplace (G2A.com Limited)

Let’s think for a second and try to imagine a market which is completely digital. Back in 2010, a company called go2arena was founded by Bartosz Skwarczek and Dawid Rożek in Rzeszów, Poland as an online game retailer. The main aim of the market was the young gamers with a lack of disposable income.

A Polish company that aimed mainly to objective of the company to sell cheaper games than normal market. Selling video games at the place where it is the lowest possible price got attractive customers suddenly. The CEO of the company Skywarcze set the goal to approach as large as possible game developers to make them sell their games on the platform. Skywarcze achieved this goal by joining various events such as Gamescom, E3 and G-Star by reaching and securing as many partnership deals as possible in order to become an official seller of the games. This decision and deals changed the company’s business model from retailer to marketplace. The company allowed people or small companies to sell video games through the platform.

The hay-day of the company happened in 2016, it began to focus on the technological innovation by investing money into development of Virtual Reality and Customer Services for its customers. G2A pay, G2a direct and G2A shield made the company to became bigger and bigger.

G2A pay, launched back in January 2015, The company introduced its online payment system through the platform in order to make the customers pay easily. With the integration of global payment methods thought the system such as PayPal, Skrill, Webmoney and financial services such as Maestro, Visa, MasterCard and American Express. Also integrating chargeback production availability to system to protect the customers and sellers through the system against the illegal refunds which is called Chargeback Fraud which was a big issue on the digital market place.

Introducing G2A Direct which allowed developers to join the program in July, 2016. Selling developer’s games and charging the customers became much easier. G2A was only getting small commission from those sales from the customers and developers. By joining the program, G2A allowed developers to ranked higher on the market place of G2A platform.

G2A Shield which is a paid membership service for the customer. It offers additional protection to customer who are buying the game thought platform and enjoy the games by playing. Thanks to its customer services, if customer has any problem from the buyer perspective, G2A has 24 hours to solve this issue with the seller. Also G2A including G2A coin transfer, up to 10% cashback, priority pre-order games receive by the customer. With 24/7 live chat in customer service, customer is buying the games without any problem.

Poland is a developing country which is an European Union member state, that’s why companies such as G2A gets a lot of free space to develop and grow in this country.

Let me know about what is your thinking for buying games or anything online. Do you think, it is a good idea to start a business online such as G2A?

 

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