Too British for Black Friday.
By Jenny Drew, The Coupon Detective.
Over the last two years, Black Friday has made its way to Britain with a wave of deals and controversy. Originally an American import where the Friday after thanksgiving, the shops reduce their stock to bargain basement prices. People clamber and queue for hours outside the door of their favourite department stores to grab that elusive offer, it originally seemed to take off in Britain quite well.
However, last year saw many fights in the aisles of supermarkets and the police even being called to arrest people as assaults took place over luxury goods such as TVs and game stations. Many people shunned the hurly burly of the instore bargain not wanting to risk life and limb and chose to go online to grab their goodies, but with servers overloaded many people were left empty handed and disappointed by what should have been a shopping high.
This year Asda announced it was shunning black Friday in favour of a more British approach to shopping, a few days of great sales across a wide range of things in a much more civilised approach to the sales. In other words queue up as normal, there is plenty for everyone. Many were shocked as Asda is owned by Walmart, an American company that helped introduce black Friday in the first place. But was the negative publicity of fights, assaults and quite frankly appalling behaviour too much for even them to spin in a good light for the British public?
Tesco is still running with black Friday, although they are having sales at the moment, interestingly you can still double up your vouchers on black Friday so that might be a great option for a few Christmas presents, but if you’re planning on getting there early and getting the good stuff you will have to…. that’s right queue. Although a lot of stores will be open from midnight they are only letting around 10 people in at a time to avoid the crushes and fights of last time, so people will be waiting outside in an orderly fashion to get their deals, with some stores even floating around the idea of giving out numbered tickets to prevent queue jumping and arguments over who was first. Although this is not practical to be done all day as those who just popped in for a pint of milk at 11am won’t want to wait 20 minutes it’s hoped it will sort out all the bargain hunters who have gotten their early.
So will there be others withdrawing from the one day sale in favour of a more British approach to the sales, the good old boxing day sale and the reductions leading up to Christmas have long been used my shops to draw people in, it might not have a cool name or create shock and awe over a one day frenzy but it would seem that’s not what all shoppers want, so while many are still after a bargain most are planning on avoiding black Friday like the black plague, so is it just too American for Britain?
CLICK HERE to find out why Asda won’t be taking part in Black Friday this year.
