Black Friday has been like this for as long as I've been aware of it existing.

6 months before Black Friday last year was at the height of the first Covid panic featuring regional shortages of food staples, toilet paper, etc... So I would think not.

I can't be bothered finding the data, but I've seen graphs from previous years that show many items raise in price around October to get ready for a Black Friday "sale." Generally there are a few items that end up cheaper on the day, but most are fairly standard sales.