Black Friday is an American phenomenon. Historically it took place the day after Thanksgiving (fourth Thursday of November), and heralded the Christmas shopping period, thus putting stores into the black for the year. Hence, Black Friday. Cyber Monday was the following Monday, when online sales started. Fair enough.
The past couple of years though, the rest of the world has, unfortunately, adopted these two days with enthusiasm, despite not celebrating Thanksgiving. At all.
This year has been ridiculous in Sweden so far – Black Week, followed by Black Friday, followed by Black Weekend. My phone has been constantly dinging with texts and emails from every single shop I have ever shopped at. No huge bargains of course, just stuff that was overpriced to begin with, products specifically manufactured for sales, outdated tat from last year and measly 25% discounts on discontinued products. You could probably find a few great bargains if you are prepared to fight your way through the Christmas carols, balloons, huge signs, decorations hanging from every empty space, piles of sales fodder, and hordes of people to get there. But why bother. Sales are on all year round anyway.
I am dreading Cyber Monday….probably to be followed by Cyber Week and Cyber Weekend and then the Christmas sales. I was already fed up when stores started to display Christmas stuff before Halloween (another American tradition that has been enthusiastically embraced by the retail sector in order to squeeze more out of the spending public). Sales used to be twice a year and a chance to snag a bargain. Now the entire retail year is one big sale where nothing is really a bargain.
Still, it will give me a good opportunity to deregister and unsubscribe from every single shop that spams me with Deals! Bargains! Opportunities! Discounts!
I wish I lived in France where I believe sales can only take place for a certain length of time at specific times of year.
I hear you. Thanks to the “genius” minds behind a big commercial chain, we got a “Black Friday” for a second time this year in Greece. Their competitors followed, and then the rest of the market. We haven’t had any scenes like the ones in the USA (yet), then again ours wasn’t a proper “Black Friday”, it was more a glorified sales campaign. To make things more ridiculous, most people here are on a very tight budget and can’t afford to spend their money like that. The salespeople of course worked overtime and though official records deny it, they are NOT paid for their overtime (a well known-fact here in Greece). Still, all this doesn’t make sense to those idiots who work in Marketing and for a week now we have been bombarded in the media and the internet we all kinds of advertisement.
I blame Marketing. These people are out of touch with reality. Let’s not forget, they are the ones who turned Christmas from a 12-day religious holiday to a two-month non-religious shopping feast.