So it seems “Black Friday” has come and gone in the UK without it really stirring anything very much. The Daily Telegraph reports that Currys PC World in Oxford Street opened its doors especially early to let in the rampaging hoardes looking for a bargain – and there was one bloke outside who’d dropped by to pick up his pre-ordered laptop!
It’s no surprise to me. In fact I’m rather pleased that this particular US import isn’t getting much traction over here.
And nor should it.
Picture from The Sun of shoppers fighting over a flat-screen TV
The reason for “black Friday” is that this is how it was referred to by US retailers. The day in question is the Friday after Thanksgiving – which always falls on the last Thursday in November. For many of my American friends Thanksgiving, or “turkey day” as it’s colloquially known, is a much bigger family event than Christmas. The problem for US retailers was that after a day of scoffing Turkey and convivial drinking with their loved ones, most folks booked the Friday as vacation and slept in the next morning. So retailers didn’t sell very much on that particular Friday morning.
Hence it became known as “Black Friday”. Then some bright spark thought of the idea of having a discount sale, but one that ended at midday. So to get the great prices you had to get out of bed and go buy that TV, bike, carpet or whatever else, before lunchtime. I’ve been there on that day (in Boston, MA), and done it. And it’s quite fun, but a lot of people end up buying a lot of stuff they didn’t really want or need just because it was cheap, and the offer was time-limited.
That was it. And of course the UK doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, we didn’t have the dip in retail sales on that day, and “black Friday” meant nothing to us.
But the world’s moved on. We can now shop on the internet, so Americans can still sleep in and snap up those bargains without even getting out of bed. And, of course, anyone else in the world with an internet connection can shop from those US retailers. And, with US retailers owning UK chains (IIRC it was Asda, which is owned by WalMart, which originally introduced the concept of Black Friday to the UK some years ago) Black Friday has metamorphosed from a once-a-year, Friday-morning only sale in the USA, to a whole week of discount offers across half the globe.
I’m delighted to see that Marks & Spencer, Fat Face and several other major UK retailers are spurning the Black Friday farce – I believe they’re right when they say all it does is bring higher-price sales during December forward, and reduces the margin on them. It also encourages people to buy stuff they don’t really need. Time magazine suggests that in the US return rate of goods bought on Black Friday is significantly higher than for goods bought at other times of the year. It’s especially so for technology purchases. So the admin and restocking cost for the retailer is higher.
Please Britain, remember Thanksgiving isn’t something we celebrate, so let’s abandon this unnecessary US import.
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