After confirmation of another Black Friday/Cyber Monday damp squib this year, it poses the question, are Brits are ready to scrap the period altogether?
Black Friday, originally a reference to the hordes of workers in the 1950s calling sick on Friday after Thanksgiving, now operates as a period when shoppers can get ‘never seen before’ discounts on products.
The weekend, a perfect encapsulation of US consumerism, even spawned a dedicated website counting the number of deaths due to Black Friday (currently at 17 since 2006).
Britain began steadily to adopt the holiday in the last 15 years, initially consumers appeared excited by the thought of deals worth killing for.
In 2014, the UK saw chaotic stampedes in Asda and ‘mini riots’ in Tesco, leaving some guessing the discount day would only grow in popularity.
Cut to 2022, recession in full flow as the cost-of-living crisis worsens and retailers look weaker than ever.
Is it a surprise that retailers’ sales volumes shrunk by 0.4% in November, a month expected to boost sales due to black Friday and cyber-Monday.
During the pandemic the in-store chaos was replaced by online retailers, bear in mind it is much easier to compare prices on the web than when a fellow shopper is calling you out for twelve rounds over the contents of your trolley.
This likely shifted consumer attitude, but the revelation that retailers’ ‘black Friday bargains’ were in fact re-hashed or cheaper throughout the year may be the final nail in the coffin.
Black Friday now seems to be a chance for companies to churn out marketing campaigns and dump stock that it’s struggled to sell over the year and consumers appear to be catching on.
Whether retailers will continue to push the period will likely be down to the customers, but in the UK’s current backdrop its hard to see it struggling on in its current form for much longer.