27/11/25 A brutally honest look at Black Friday

I want to let you in on a few Black Friday secrets and strategies (feel free to scroll down) But first, there has been an overriding theme in my week so far:

how on earth do you stand out in a crowd?

It started with a podcast about Black Friday.

The main question being “should you bother with Black Friday marketing at all”?

If everyone is being carpet bombed with Black Friday advertising, is it worth spending time, effort and money adding to the noise?

Because when everyone shouts louder, nobody stands out. It all becomes noise, a whole herd running in the same direction and everyone getting fed up.

This idea kept appearing in other parts of my week too.

I went to my son’s parents’ evening at college. It is his first yea,r and he is doing brilliantly. His photography teacher said, “I could not ask for a better student.” (proud Dad moment). His psychology teacher said his work is really great too, and that his thoughts are just as valid as those of the more vocal students. He just needs the confidence to put them forward.

I also sat in a meeting about the future of AI in small businesses, and the same question came up.

How do you stand out when everyone suddenly has the ability to churn out endless content with very little effort?

And finally Four different customers came to chat with me this week about aquarium lighting. Not the simple on and off lighting. The fully app controlled all singing, all dancing type of lighting. As always, I was not pushy. I just gave balanced, honest advice.

None of them have bought the lighting so far, but that’s O.K. (wipes a single tear from his eye).

Maybe they are waiting for a Black Friday deal, or maybe they want a second opinion from the internet.

After all, why trust me. I am just another sheep in the crowd…who occasionally wears a flat cap in black and white videos!

What is it all about?

There are a few familiar strategies most retailers use. November is usually a flat month, so Black Friday gives businesses a useful boost and kicks off the Christmas buying season.

The items with the biggest discounts are often the ones retailers want to reduce stock levels of, or products they bought specifically to discount. Some items are even created just for Black Friday.

Then there is the classic 10 percent off everything approach. Or 12 percent, because that extra 2 percent is apparently very motivating. This is great if you were already planning to buy, but nobody decides to trust a brand new company because they saved 10%, and that’s what it should really be about, creating relationships with new customers that last.

Creating a sense of urgency

The term Black Friday actually started in Philadelphia in the 1950s, and really became a force of nature in the ’80s & ,90s.

But it most certainly isn’t a one day event anymore.

You can pick up BF deals in October and as I heard from 7 different adverts in 6 minutes this morning Black Friday deals end 2^nd December.

The same deal will almost certainly reappear in January and is very likely to hang around in December too, just wearing a different dress!

Make sure the deal is right for you. Make sure it is something useful, something you would genuinely consider buying even without a countdown timer flashing at you like an overexcited neon tetra.

A brutally honest look at our own offers

After all this talk about standing out from the herd, I thought I should take a brutally honest look at our own Black Friday offers. There are some, I have done because others are doing them, some because we have quite a bit in stock, and others that are nice, unique deals with genuine value.

If you take a look at our black Friday deals you will see the following initials beneath each offer

Here is the key:

HM means Herd Mentality. Everyone else is doing it, so we joined in.

TMS means Too Much Stock. Great products we bought heavily, and for various reasons they did not move as expected.

ISNS means I See No Sheep. Something genuinely different that deserves to be shouted about.

Pssst! This is our little secret, it means nothing to anyone just looking at the Black Friday page!

Examples: #

1. HEARD MENTALITY: The D&D deals, the AI Hydra Edge 44 light has 12% off, the suppliers announced this and we are sharing the price reduction, you will find the same deal on every online store.

2.TOO MUCH STOCK: The cloverleaf Absolute aquarium pearls, great product, they make your aquarium sparkle and do wonders for the water quality, we bought a load of them, but they changed the packaging and they haven’t sold as well as we had hoped.

3. I SEE NO SHEEP: The Danube 135 acrylic cylinder tank with £120 worth of free equipment. This is a genuine offer. They are great tanks, and I wanted to put a package together that would help people to enjoy them better and not be wondering “what else do I need?”

It’s also worth mentioning that the Free 10ml bottles of satus and Optimus plus £10 off your shipping when you spend £70 or more on tropical fish is a great offer. Satus and optimus are two truly revolutionary products to come out in the past few years, Natalia also wanted to encourage people to order a few more tropical fish as she’s running out of smaller poly boxes! Now that’s real honesty for you!

Black Friday is a great event but it should be used with intention, not simply because everyone else is doing the same thing. #

For us at Shirley Aquatics, that means being honest, helpful and human. It means standing out because we do things the right way, not the loud way.

Just doing what we always do.

Thank you for making it t the end of this email, It is a long one, and believe it or not I have probably cut it in half already, I felt you didn’t perhaps need to know the detailed history of Black Friday!

If you’ve enjoyed this or found it useful in anyway, I try and send one out each week on a different topic, you can subscribe below:

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P.S.

We have had loads of new tanks in this week, so keep a look out on the socials or pop in and take a look.

P.P.S

I am almost over this cold, which made my nose worthy of a sleigh pull! So you may see me on some more videos

P.P.P.S. This email was sent out just prior to Black Friday in 2025. It may well be that prices have changed by the time you read this. The offers described are only valid until 30th November 2025