Retailers extend Black Friday as shoppers, scams and impulse buying rise

It is a mid‑November morning in Andorra la Vella and shops are already dressing for the busiest weekend of the retail year. Staff pull down shutters, stick up red sale signs and prepare for Black Friday — a commercial event that retailers say now stretches from a day into a whole weekend or even a week. Some merchants, particularly in electronics, say they have been preparing for weeks and feel the event has grown excessive; others in Spain, they note, run discounts for the whole month.

Customers approach the period with a range of attitudes. Some plan purchases carefully, using the sales to buy items they have been hunting for or to pick up early Christmas gifts. Others admit to compulsive buying or to buying things they do not need. Popular purchases vary by age: younger shoppers look for video games and clothes, while older buyers often seek perfumes, phones and household appliances.

Skepticism about deals is common. Several shoppers say they have seen prices raised in the weeks before Black Friday only to be reduced back to their previous level to create the impression of a large discount. Some use price‑tracking websites to check historical prices and avoid being misled.

Psychologists warn that the event is designed to trigger impulsive buying. Clinical psychologist Lara Garcia says anticipatory reward systems in the brain — driven by dopamine — make people feel they are making a good purchase, while constant, attention‑grabbing messages and notifications produce hyperactivation that can override rational decision‑making. The fear of missing out (FOMO) also increases pressure and blurs perceptions of need.

Garcia recommends practical steps to avoid impulsive spending: make a pre‑shopping list of real needs, ask whether an item would be bought at full price, set and stick to a budget, and pause to think twice before purchasing.

Authorities and cybersecurity experts also warn of a sharp rise in scams around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The National Cybersecurity Agency says cyber fraud typically surges during these dates and expects a significant increase in scams this year, including schemes that imitate courier messages about "unsolicited packages" to trick recipients into clicking malicious links.

The police have published detailed advice for consumers and online retailers. For individuals, recommendations include avoiding purchases over public Wi‑Fi, keeping devices updated to benefit from security fixes, shopping only on official, reputable websites, and treating unusually large discounts or offers from unknown pages or social media accounts with suspicion. Consumers are advised to track prices in advance, use secure payment methods such as PayPal or virtual credit cards with limited balances, check bank statements regularly for unauthorized transactions, and save all proof of purchase and related communications. They should also beware of enticing online contests, which can be phishing attempts aimed at stealing personal data or money.

Online sellers are urged to prepare operationally and technically for an increase in orders to avoid system overloads and revenue loss. Businesses should strengthen security measures and monitor the origin and pattern of orders: alerts should be raised when a single account places many orders with different delivery addresses, when connections originate from countries that do not match delivery destinations, or when an unusual variety of payment methods is used. Companies are also advised to implement systems that validate the sale price at the moment of payment to prevent tampering or price‑display manipulation.

Retailers say the government conducts periodic and random checks on pre‑sale pricing to prevent deceptive practices. For consumers and sellers alike, the combined advice is to plan ahead, keep records, and prioritise secure channels and cautious behaviour to avoid disappointment or fraud during the sales surge.