Black Friday comes to the UK
27/11/2014
Tomorrow, UK retailers will be slashing their prices by up to 70% as thousands of shoppers are expected to descend on the UKs high street.
The American shopping day, Black Friday, has officially come to England as stores including Asda, Tesco, John Lewis and Sainsburys will all offer one day discounts to entice shoppers in the run up to Christmas. These offers are usually on electrical goods like TVs, tablets, kitchen gadgets and audio hardware, as electricals are often where shops can get the best deals from suppliers.
According to a Visa estimate, spending on Black Friday in the UK will be up 22% on last year with £1m spent on its cards every three minutes on the day.
Black Friday, a shopping day after the American holiday Thanksgiving, first came to the UK in 2010. Website retailer Amazon started offering the UK Black Friday deals, and was the first retailer to do so. Since then, more and more stores have joined in, offering their biggest discounts on the fourth Friday of November every year.
Black Friday 2014 is predicted to be the biggest online shopping day ever in the UK. Amazon is set to offer 3,000 deals on its website throughout the day, on a first come, first served basis, and massive discounts are expected in American owned Asda. John Lewis will be price matching products offered by rivals in its “never knowingly undersold” pledge. Evidence suggests that Black Friday is accelerating the online shopping revolution and changes in shopping habits.
Christopher North, managing director of Amazon.co.uk, said:
“Black Friday took an incredible leap forward in 2013 with so many more customers taking advantage of the great deals on that day, resulting in sales of over 4m items for the very first time in our history.
“This year, we are offering more deals and savings than ever before and we are expecting record numbers to benefit from Black Friday Deals Week.”
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