TikTok Exposes Home Depot For Alleged Fake Black Friday Deals
A TikTok video called out Home Depot for allegedly faking Black Friday deals by masking original prices as a “deal” with the exact same price.
With close to 25,000 likes, TikToker @sidemoneytom removed the “holiday sale” price sticker on a high-pressure inflator priced at $24.97, which was the original price underneath. He didn’t stop there. The content creator went around the home improvement retailer to expose other items that customers assumed they were getting for a steal. He exposed a smash burger maker being sold for $19.97, priced the same on a regular day.
A drone was also revealed to have a Black Friday deal of $34.88, revealed to be the original price.
While Home Depot has yet to respond to the allegations, retail experts warn companies that such moves can be considered false advertising. They also highlight it as a bad decision, with trends like shrinkflation taking over and heightening customer mistrust.
“Leading retailers invest heavily in their customer relationships, and trust is a major component of this,” said the marketing software company OptiMine CEO Matt Voda. “Trust is difficult and slow to build, but lost very easily and quickly with such practices.”
Video viewers in the comment section didn’t seem shocked by what they saw. One user claimed to be a former employee and seemingly confirmed that the retailer often does fake Black Friday deals. Another said they feel that customers may have taken note from previous Black Fridays. “People have noticed. There were no lines this year or last year. This year seemed even smaller than last year. Stores didn’t start getting packed until 10 or 11,” @boomski wrote.
Target was also accused of faking its Black Friday deals on TikTok. Attorney Ugo Lord reposted a video in which a woman pulled back the price of a smart TV advertised with a Black Friday price of $649.99. When she removed the sticker, it showed that the TV was already on sale for the same price.
Luke Kachersky, an associate professor of marketing at the Fordham Gabelli School of Business, says tactics like this have been going on for a while because it’s difficult to prove that a retailer is pushing false advertising. “Sure, the price is the same, but the retailer could simply argue they’re labeled [or] re-named their existing prices for the season,” Kachersky said.
“But while that kind of argument might work for a retailer in a legal sense, it fails common sense. Consumers are definitely going to feel lied to.”
One TikTok user said they learned their lesson from Amazon in 2023.
According to AOL, Amazon was hit with a lawsuit after being accused of pushing fake discounts to entice people to buy products. The suit, filed by customer David Ramirez, who purchased an Amazon Fire TV, explicitly targets the product’s “list price,” accusing the online conglomerate of making it look like a product is on sale when it’s not. The litigation proposes there aren’t “limited-time sales”—with the old idea that if things are on sale all the time, nothing is on sale.
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