Friday, November 28, 2008

#000000 Friday

Walmart - Black Friday 2008Image by bisongirl via FlickrToday was Black Friday (#000000 Friday if you are a geek) this is the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States, traditionally this signals the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Black Friday is not an official holiday, but many employees have the day off, which increases the number of potential shoppers. The latest Elmo always seems to signal a huge melee!

In the UK it's a different story, with the current state of the economy the consumer seems reluctant to spend waiting for the expected sales and reductions to arrive. Stores over the WestEnd today opened at 7am obviously looking to entice the city workers to spend their wages. It failed as not many people were interested, I read that there were two girls who queued for TopShop and similar stories at other stores.

In all fairness I forgot that the early openings were even taking place, the offer of champagne to shoppers alone would have been enough to tempt me. Although this wasn't widely acknowledged I feel that they should persevere and raise more awareness by marketing as Christmas is only a few weeks away.

I took advantage of the Apple Store discounts today, the Black Friday sales were mirrored across the world and not just in America. There weren't massive reductions but any offer is worth taking advantage of however much the price is slashed. With the problems surrounding Woolworths there will be a lot more reductions to come over the coming weeks so like playing poker I am not showing my hand just yet!

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