Black Friday sales around the world

The Thanksgiving shopping tradition has gotten ahead of the holiday itself.

On Nov. 10, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. offered many holiday promotions online or within its mobile app. J.C. Penney Co. sent its Black Friday advertisements to users of its mobile app on Nov. 4, and started those sales on Wednesday, a day earlier this year than last year and one day ahead of Thanksgiving.

With sales on Black Friday slipping, U.S. retailers are offering pre-Thanksgiving deals even earlier than in recent years to draw shoppers as the day after no longer marks a spending peak at brick-and-mortar chains.

Black Friday, as the day after Thanksgiving is called, has traditionally started the holiday shopping season in the United States and was the day when retailers turned a profit, thus going from “being in the red” to “in the black.”

Many retailers have started opening their stores on Thanksgiving evening to boost customer traffic and sales.

The Black Friday "price war" will make it a very unpredictable Christmas for retailers. Photo: Reuters

But the number of Thanksgiving weekend shoppers fell by nearly a third to 102 million in 2015, from 147 million in 2012, according to the National Retail Federation. Moreover, early holiday promotions and online shopping hurt in-store spending by more than 6 percent last year, it said.

U.S. retailers, however, have redoubled efforts this year to boost sales with familiar tactics but greater intensity. Wal-Mart (WMT.N) has already said it will increase inventory by more than half this year and make deals typically reserved for Black Friday available online early Thanksgiving morning.

Retail pricing and data analytics firm Market Track said an analysis of 15 top U.S. brick-and-mortar retailers and their Black Friday circular announcements online showed they were about three days earlier than last year.

"They are all trying to beat each other to the punch and starting their promotions earlier and earlier every year," said Traci Gregorski, senior vice president, marketing at Market Track.

Last year, discounts on popular products deepened by 30 to 40 percent from Black Friday prices as Christmas got closer, according to Market Track data.

Mark Cohen, a professor at Columbia Business School and the former chief executive of Sears Canada (SCC.TO), said the urgency related to Black Friday has greatly diminished.

Advertisements of the upcoming Black Friday sales are seen on TV screens at a Walmart store in Westminster, Colorado, U.S. November 23, 2016. Photo:REUTERS/Rick Wilking

"Consumers know great deals and discounts are available throughout the year, and prices during the holiday season will only get better if they wait," he said.

Deals have been available for several days already on websites of retailers like Target Corp (TGT.N), Macy's Inc (M.N), Kohl's Corp (KSS.N), Home Depot Stores Inc (HD.N) and Lowe's Cos Inc (LOW.N).

E-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) joined with a first of its kind month-long Black Friday promotion.

Some brands are getting in on the action by offering steep discounts that reduce the appeal of waiting for Black Friday. Handbag maker Kate Spade (KATE.N) is already offering 75 percent off some items, and off-price chain Saks Off Fifth has similar discounts on some clothing and shoes.

"The holiday season is expanding, and Black Friday is no longer the kickoff for the season," said Natalie Kotlyar, who heads retail and consumer products at business advisory firm BDO Consumer, adding many start holiday shopping at Halloween, Labor Day or even Amazon's Prime Day on July 12.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll of 1,639 adults online showed 63 percent did not plan to shop on Black Friday this year. Some 32 percent said they plan to finish about half of their holiday shopping on that day.

Stores like Macy’s in New York brace for large crowds on Black Friday.Photo: Peter Foley

The year-end shopping season spanning November and December is crucial for retailers because it can account for up to 40 percent of their annual sales. The NRF, which has been overly optimistic at times in the past with its sales projections, expects holiday sales to grow 3.6 percent this year to $655.8 billion.

For Black Friday alone, about 70 percent of retailers expect sales to remain flat this year, according to telephone interviews with chief marketing officers at 100 U.S. retail firms, BDO Consumer said.

Nevertheless, big bricks-and-mortar players like Target and Wal-Mart will still open at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

Black Friday Sales—Europe Style

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 spread out their sales over several days, often starting well before the Friday after Thanksgiving.

A department store on Oxford Street in London, England, on Tuesday advertised its Black Friday sale, as European retailers piggyback on the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday sales event. Photo:Getty Images

More recently, however, there has been a bit of a backlash. Asda,Wal-Mart StoresInc.’s U.K. unit that helpedpopularize the phenomenon three years agosaid 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 alien to many European shoppers, the shopping holiday attached to it isn’t. “We’ve had a lot of people coming in,” saidFrank 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.

Black Friday kicks off the Christmas sales season. Black Friday kicks off the Christmas sales season. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon

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.

This is how Australians can get the best deals

While the shopping day is in the US and comes after Thanksgiving, the advent of online retailing has spread its influence worldwide.

That means Australian shoppers won’t miss out on the bargains.

A popular explanation for the name is that it represented the point in the year when retailers go from “in the red” to “in the black”. Photo: Gunnar Rathbun

The earliest evidence of the phrase Black Friday applied to the day after Thanksgiving in a shopping context suggests that the term originated in Philadelphia, where it was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic that would occur on the day after Thanksgiving.

This usage dates to at least 1961. More than 20 years later, as the phrase became more widespread, a popular explanation became that it represented the point in the year when retailers begin to turn a profit, thus going from being “in the red” to being “in the black”.

Some Australian retailers will be hoping the same occurs here.

However, there seems to be a rise in discounting in the past month as retailers try to shift stock, even before they head into the post-Christmas discounting.

The new Myer store is part of Scentre Group’s $310 million Westfield Warringah mall redevelopment

According to Colliers International, department stores have not been faring so well, just managing to scrape into positive territory at 0.17 per cent year on year in September after two consecutive months of declines.

This is despite the department store owners spending a lot of time and money on new formats and strategies to capture the elusive customer dollar.

Black Friday in the US has created some competitive behavior among shoppers. But there’s no need to get physical, with many bargains available online. Photo: Simon Dawson

That is reflected in the new Myer store at Scentre Group and AMP Capital’s newly revamped Warringah Mall, in Sydney.

The interior design and architectural concept was by Woods Bagot, with store “designed around the customer, for the customer”.

(APD)