These 4 Things Kept Consumers From Shopping on Black Friday This Year

Some consumers skipped the biggest shopping day of the year for good reasons.

There's a reason Black Friday tends to get so much hype. The day after Thanksgiving is when you'll commonly find loads of deals on everything from toys to apparel to electronics. And often, the prices you'll find on Black Friday are the lowest prices you'll snag all year (though this is definitely not always the case).

But not everyone shops on Black Friday. And in a recent report by PYMNTS, these were four reasons some consumers opted out of the big event.

1. Crowded stores

For 31% of those who didn't shop on Black Friday, crowded stores were a deal-breaker. The reality is that a lot of people took to shopping online during the pandemic, and as a result, they're now less enthusiastic about the idea of waiting in long checkout lines and being elbow-to-elbow with others at stores. If you decided you couldn't deal with duking it out with your fellow shoppers on Black Friday, don't sweat it.

2. A lack of funds

A good 29% of people who passed on Black Friday said they didn't have enough money to shop that day. And they made a very smart decision. It's not a good idea to shop at a time when money is tight, as that's a great way to end up with credit card debt. A much better route is to save up ahead of time so you can cover your Black Friday purchases in full. And so if you skipped out on Black Friday due to not having saved money for it, you made a very sound choice.

3. Wanting to wait

Lots of great deals can pop up on Black Friday. But that doesn't mean bargains can't emerge after the fact. That's why 18% of those who skipped Black Friday did so -- they specifically wanted to wait and see what other deals came down the pike. Now, we don't know if those same people wound up taking advantage of Cyber Monday. But chances are, the Monday after Thanksgiving was loaded with bargains, too.

4. Lackluster deals

For 15% of people who didn't shop on Black Friday, the reason boiled down to thinking the deals weren't good enough. While retailers tend to offer discounts across a range of categories on Black Friday, sometimes, those deals aren't so substantial. If you're not a big fan of major retail events and saw that most of the items you were interested in were only marked down by 10% or 15%, that may have been a reason to say no to Black Friday shopping.

It's okay to skip Black Friday

There's a lot of pressure to go shopping on Black Friday. Marketers like to drill it into consumers that if they don't hit the stores that day, they're going to miss out on massive deals they'll never find again. 

But the reality is that it's perfectly okay to skip Black Friday and shop at another time for the holidays -- or even to not shop at all. So if you decided to pass on Black Friday discounts this year, rest assured you didn't make a silly choice. If anything, you probably made a wise one.