Britons Chase Black Friday Bargains

WASHINGTON (CNN) – In the heat of the presidential primaries, when every dollar counts, Black Friday deals aren’t just for retailers.

Jon Copestake, of the Economist Intelligence Unit, told the Daily Telegraph: “What we are starting to see is Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Super Saturday all roll into one in a sales season that lasts several weeks in the run-up to Christmas”. Many deals can be availed online when the deals go live at midnight.

Ebay is expecting nine million Britons to visit its website today, Argos, Currys PC World and AO.com are all offering hundreds of pounds off selected items, while John Lewis has promised to honour its Never Knowingly Undersold pledge and match competitors’ prices.

Members of the public at Tesco Extra in Sheffield this morning at 5am getting their hands on the Black Friday bargains.

Online retailers are reporting record-breaking sales from the first few hours of the bonanza making it likely that online retail sales in the United Kingdom will surpass £1 billion in one day.

Wrestling over a television on Black Friday at an Asda superstore a year ago. Or, what in America is called a typical Black Friday.

Curry’s – Electrical retailer Curry’s is holding a Black Tag event for ten days, with discounts on home appliances, TVs, and laptops.

Green MSP Patrick Harvie said Black Friday was “deliberately created to whip customers up into a frenzy of aggression and in some cases violence”.

Another supermarket that saw violence was Asda, whose store in Wembley witnessed scenes of mayhem.

Introduced into Britain in 2010 by US online retailer Amazon, its popularity forced store groups to join the fray and this year, according to a survey by Barclays, 77 percent of them are participating. In fact, it’s estimated that €109 million will be spent in Ireland during Black Friday, up a third on past year.

The Centre for Retail Research has predicted a more modest £966m in online spending but says sales including from those shopping in person will reach £1.39bn, with the weekend’s proceeds and Cyber Monday hitting £3.49bn.

Within the heat of the presidential primaries, when each greenback counts, Black Fri. deals aren’t only for retailers.

The numbers don’t come as a surprise necessarily, considering how Amazon always have the cheapest prices throughout the normal year.

They report annual online revenues of £1.4 billion and here at Capacitas we typically see 2% of demand taking place on Black Friday.

Indeed, a Black Friday backlash appears to be gathering force at a time when some traditionalists are already bemoaning the way that Halloween, with its kitsch and goofy costumes and edible eyeball cakes, is slowly supplanting Guy Fawkes Day, the four-centuries-old British festival that falls on November 5.