The blurred lines between price and value

Black Friday is the day people save £200 by spending £800 on a television they did not want on Thursday. Commerce calls this a bargain. The spare room, where the previous bargain is gathering dust, may disagree.

The crossed-out price pulls off a clever substitution. It removes “Will this improve my life?” and inserts “Can I afford to miss this saving?” Scarcity supplies the siren. Three left. Offer ends at midnight. Forty-seven strangers are looking at this exact air fryer, presumably with hostile intent. Suddenly waiting becomes a loss, although ownership was not a gain five minutes ago.

Value begins after payment. The exercise bike becomes valuable when ridden, not when reduced by 40%. Three-for-two yoghurt ceases to be a triumph when the third pot develops a beard. Annual software at half price is expensive if six people spend January devising ways around it. These are not moral objections to discounts. Discounts are splendid when attached to something useful. I would happily buy decent socks at half price and feel like a minor aristocrat.

There is also a peculiar shame in admitting that the deal, rather than the thing, created the desire. So we invent reasons afterwards. The giant television will improve family time. The blender represents a new healthy chapter. The discounted coat is “an investment”, despite owning sleeves too fashionable to survive February. Scarcity makes the decision; storytelling launders it.

The test is embarrassingly simple: would I still want this if the red label vanished? If yes, enjoy the saving. If no, the retailer has sold you the sensation of avoiding a loss and thrown in an object as packaging.

Sometimes the countdown reaches zero and nothing happens. The television remains available, the kitchen continues without another appliance, and by breakfast the emergency has become an email in the deleted folder.