‘Black Friday’ has been around since the 1950s, when Philadelphia police to describe the chaotic day after Thanksgiving.
Since picked up by retailers, it has now morphed into a crucial day of shop discounts in the retail calendar – and (for better or worse) become synonymous with online giant Amazon in the process.
But this year, the Amazon sale is called ‘Black Friday Week’, and many shops – like Sephora, Argos and Gymshark – launched deep sales early on in November.
“Black Friday isn’t a shop-floor event anymore… it’s a digital, multi-week campaign,” Joe Llewellyn, general manager of The Access Group, said.
Online shopping data from October shows an early start for Christmas shopping, with spending on toys up 50 per cent month on month and video games spending up 43 per cent, according to Adobe.
The acceleration in spending is directly down to shoppers “taking advantage” of early Cyber Weekend promotions and holiday season discounts, Adobe found.
Why is Black Friday getting longer?
As Black Friday becomes bigger and bigger, retailers find it harder to squeeze all the demand into just one day, Llewellyn explained, adding that retailers are releasing deals earlier to “smooth demand peaks”.
Correctly predicting and shipping stock on the busiest shopping day of the year – online retailers get a 15 per cent revenue increase, on average – required a huge amount of coordination and forward planning.
A longer discount period also makes it easier to deal with high volumes of returns, which average just over 10 per cent of all goods sold and which take time and money to process and re-sell.
But the lengthening of Black Friday isn’t just a business-driven phenomenon: Brits are actively searching for deals on Google more often and earlier than ever.
After a long cost-of-living crisis and the subsequent sticky behaviorial shift towards discounts over traditional brand loyalty, consumers are more likely than ever to look to discount events for their holiday shopping.
At the same time, cash-strapped retailers are hyper-focused on how to bring shoppers in after being squeezed by both low spending and high taxes.
“Some retailers have brought forward discounting to tempt early spend [ahead of the festive season]… retailers will be watching closely, hoping to see momentum build in November,” Andy Sumpter, retail consultant EMEA for Sensormatic, said.
Linda Ellett, UK head of consumer, retail and leisure at KPMG, said that retailers were aiming at “swiftly reversing” the slowdown in sales growth seen during October – and earlier this year – with the march towards Black Friday sales.
Dickinson said retailers were “counting on” a “vital” Black Friday boost, which will come days after Chancellor Rachel Reeves takes to the dispatch box to deliver her second Autumn Budget.