A Perfect Storm for Consumer Misbehavior: Shopping on Black Friday

Consumer misbehavior that harms other consumers and/or retailers has occurred recently during Black Friday (BF) sales. Using a combination of theoretical perspectives, the purpose of our research was to gather information about BF shopping to use in questionnaire development, to investigate potential relationships among the variables identified, and to suggest ideas for future research. From a survey of BF shoppers, we found shoppers who perceived they expended effort planning for and shopping on BF were likely to misbehave. We also found BF shoppers who expended effort planning and executing their BF shopping tended to score high on trait impulsivity. While this may seem contradictory, it can be explained by considering that people who expend effort in their BF planning may cognitively plan their BF activities and then take advantage of unplanned deals along the way. Our results support premises of the general aggression model to explain consumer misbehavior on BF.