Europe Embraces Black Friday Sales -- WSJ
November 25 2016 - 3:02AM
Dow Jones News
By Saabira Chaudhuri
LONDON -- Europeans don't celebrate the uniquely American
Thanksgiving holiday, but the so-called Black Friday sales that
follow Turkey Day have become part of the fabric of year-end
holiday shopping across much of the Continent.
In Britain, an early beachhead for such U.S.-style shopping
extravaganzas, Black Friday yields similar cut-rate prices, long
lines and occasional scuffles among shoppers. And just as in the
U.S., many British retailers have s pread out their sales over
several days, often starting well before the Friday after
Thanksgiving.
More recently, however, there has been a bit of a backlash.
Asda, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s U.K. unit that helped popularize the
phenomenon three years ago said last year it would forgo Black
Friday sales in the future.
"Feedback from our customers was clear that they didn't want the
pressure of a 'flash sale' and preferred to know we were offering
low prices throughout the festive season," an Asda spokesman
said.
Though Thanksgiving may be alien to many European shoppers, the
shopping holiday attached to it isn't. "We've had a lot of people
coming in," said Frank Boakye, a store associate at home-appliance
retailer Robert Dyas on Queens Street in London's financial
district on Thursday. Among bargains, the store is selling a
five-piece aluminum cookware set and a Vax vacuum cleaner, both for
60% off the regular price.
Britain's largest supermarket chain Tesco PLC extended its Black
Friday sales from four days last year to 11 days this year. The
company is offering discounts on 650 items, up from 200 items last
year and said 700 of its stores still plan to open their doors to
customers at 5 a.m. on Friday.
The sales event has even made inroads in France, though most
shoppers still struggle with its name. Last year, retailers dropped
the Black Friday branding altogether after the Nov. 13 terror
attack in Paris that killed 130 people, which also fell on a
Friday.
Some French retailers have gone back to the original name this
year, but not all. French supermarket group Auchan calls their sale
"Un Crazy Weekend." Mail-order retailer La Redoute calls it "Le
Grand Weekend."
Still, well-known retail chains, such as Fnac bookstore and
consumer electronics outlets, Gap clothing stores and Casino
supermarkets, plan to offer steep discounts in France on Friday and
over the weekend to lure customers.
In Spain, El Corte Ingles, the country's premier department
store and a pioneer of Black Friday sales there, is offering 50%
discounts on some items. Casa del Libro, a major bookstore chain,
is offering 70% discounts on online purchase between Nov. 21 and
28.
In an Elgiganten consumer-electronics store in central Stockholm
on Thursday evening, shop assistants were finishing tagging
laptops, phones and TV screens with price reductions of as much as
50%, as black banners embellished the shop's walls.
Employee Gustav Lindahl said he expects the number of visitors
on Friday, when the store will be open from 7 a.m. through
midnight, to be 12 times as high as on a normal day. "It's going to
be chaos," he said.
--Matthias Verbergt in Stockholm and Nick Kostov in Paris
contributed to this article.
Write to Saabira Chaudhuri at saabira.chaudhuri@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 25, 2016 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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