Black Friday sales are designed to give you FOMO. Don't let them

Black Friday is here, and it's hard to miss. Posters scream about big sales while emails flood inboxes — warning the savings are for one day only. It's become one of the busiest shopping days of the year. But experts say it's also a time when impulse spending can spiral out of control.

Canadians' overall holiday spending is forecast to rise 10 per cent this year compared to last, to about $1,478 per household, according to a survey by the consulting firm Deloitte. Many consumers are looking for deals, with 48 per cent of those surveyed saying they plan to shop on Black Friday.

Annie Taurasi, who was doing some shopping at Sherway Gardens in Toronto on Monday, says she's buying food and  skin care  products and gift cards for her family this year. She knows how good it feels to get a deal.

"I feel accomplished, really, like I could spend twice as much now," she said.

But another shopper at the same east end mall said she often feels bombarded by all the advertising.

"You get two or three emails from the same company a day, so sometimes I find it a bit too much," said Michelle Latchman. 

Ying Zhu, an associate professor of marketing at the University of British Columbia, explains how those ads are designed to tap into consumer emotions and encourage buying.

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Red text, like on Amazon's Black Friday deals, triggers excitement and action, while yellow, like Walmart uses in its stores, is linked to happiness and affordability, she says. Others use a countdown clock or phrases like "one day only." 

They "generate a sense of urgency," Zhu said — triggering a fear of missing out (a.k.a. FOMO).

"But the reality is there will always be some deal. So if you don't get this one, later on you may even get a better one. In order to be a smart consumer, we have to prepare ourselves to deal with this."

Social media is adding another level of pressure and increasingly shaping shopping decisions, Zhu said. Sometimes consumers feel so connected to an influencer, they trust the recommendations completely.

WATCH | Designed to spur spending:

Black Friday sales are designed to get you to spend

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Nearly half of Canadians say they are planning to shop for deals this Black Friday and retailers have all kinds of tricks to tap into consumers' emotions to entice them to buy.

"Companies use influencers to establish trust and emotion to make those spill over to their brand and spill over to their products," she said. Those are much easier sales to make than if the company were to try to persuade the shopper on its own, she says. 

Meanwhile, personalized shopping links and instant access to online marketplaces make unplanned spending very easy. And often, the "retail therapy" is a quick fix for stressed-out consumers who want to boost their mood.

Some financial planners like Natasha Knox, founder of Alaphia Financial Wellness in Vancouver, are increasingly focusing on the psychological aspects of money management to help clients.

"Financial therapy helps you think better, act better, communicate better and behave better around money," she said.

Knox says it's essential that consumers to try to pinpoint the reason behind their urge to shop. "Often it's that we're trying to not feel something, and the act of spending or buying something allows us to temporarily push that feeling away," she said.

While getting a deal may feel good, not shopping just for the sake of it might end up feeling even better, Knox says. She recommends finding other ways to boost one's mood.

"Turn off the phone… step out of the house, step out of the office into nature, talk to a friend. I would say that the more time a person spends in front of a screen, the more susceptible they are to the inundation with the messaging and the advertising. It's just really omnipresent."

That said, Zhu, the marketing professor, says there still are good deals to be had on Black Friday. She suggests consumers do their price research ahead of time so they can determine whether the sale offers a true discount.

"The more we buy, the more we want to buy," she said. "So that's why I'm saying it's very, very important we have a plan, we have a shopping list and we stick to our budget. So we won't be driven by this emotion."