Moment of Truth.. White Friday Between Trader, Consumer

Last Friday, Cairo witnessed huge shopping crowds in shops and malls, in conjunction with the offers and discounts on some products and goods during the last trading day of the "White Friday".

Sometimes the consumers were clashing with each others to get the product they want. In the large chain stores, it is very difficult to enter the mall or shop to buy the product you want.

Regardless of the battles, the clashes and the crowds, the most important thing in this phenomenon is that Egypt has a purchasing power while the Egyptian consumer is looking for a good product at a suitable price.

But the question here: is this what has been achieved last Friday? as most of the clashes were between consumers and shopkeepers; some consumers reversed their purchase decision or returned back the products after paying their prices, due to some defects in the products, raising prices before the announcement of the discounts or the difference in prices while paying compared to the announced prices.

In addition, most of our stores have a special policy that you cannot notice in any country in the world: not to return back goods sold in discounts.

Most stores announced 70% discounts and when you enter the store you find the discount does not exceed 20 or 30% and in the maximum cases 40%.

I read, at one of websites that a housewife had returned back more than 11 pieces as she discovered that the price of the products while paying increased by more than 50% than the announced price.

Another one confirmed that there are many mistakes in the sales operations due to the differences in the prices, and that the store officials told her that there are errors in payment systems due to not activating the "discount codes".

In addition; customers are leaving a number of products in wrong places. Most of winter clothes either disappeared from the offers or were offered with unconvincing discounts that does not differ from normal days.

We want the Consumer Protection Agency to tell us whether this is a type of fraud or it is happening all over the world and if there is rising in prices before announcing the discounts to make face discounts, especially that Household and Electrical Appliances pision at the Cairo Chamber of Commerce announced that 80% of the discounts on the occasion of the so-called "White Friday" are fake offers.

We are waiting for the outcomes of this day from the regulatory agencies and research centers to know the indicators, the purchasing power of the Egyptian consumer and the volume of sales on this day.