Once upon a time, Black Friday was an annual sale day that ran for one day a year. A Friday, as its name suggests.

One day wasn’t enough, so we turned it into a four-day frenzy by adding Cyber Monday. Then came the sneaky Thursday and the ‘Cyber 5’.

Now, Black Friday discounts start two weeks out, but 14-day sales were never designed by or for small and sustainable brands that price with integrity, manufacture responsibly and market honestly. And this kind of discount culture is crippling small Australian brands.

I’ve been watching it happen for more than a decade. I built one of Australia’s largest online stores for sustainable fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands, and I never ran a Black Friday sale. I never ran sales at all.

No Boxing Day rushes. No EOFY flash sales. No Afterpay Day discounts. Nothing.

That decision was ideological, yes, but it was also commercial. I like making money. I just never understood why I would spend the entire year asking customers to value the full price of a responsibly made product, then arrive in November and announce that, surprise, it’s suddenly worth 20, 30 or 40 per cent less.

As I grew my business over the years, I learnt more about consumer behaviour and sales psychology, and discounting for the sake of discounting made less and less sense.

When you teach customers to expect regular discounts, they learn that the full price is negotiable. When you run a sale at the same time every year, they learn to wait for it.

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