Information about Black Friday 2020
Tomorrow (Friday 27th November) is Black Friday.
Black Friday evolved in the United States as something similar to the traditional Boxing Day sales in the UK. It is on the first Friday following the US Thanksgiving holiday, making it the fourth Friday of November.
With shops packed with shoppers, the online industry countered with Cyber Monday on the following Monday, with home appliance and tech products featuring prominently. Now the week running up to Black Friday has been designated as Cyber Week and sees a raft of discounted prices.
Black Friday was introduced to the UK by American owned Asda (who discontinued it several years ago) and online by Amazon .
This year, with non essential shops closed because of the second lockdown, Black Friday won’t be happening on the High Street causing retail sales to plunge again. This after an unexpectedly good October for all sectors except clothing and fashion.
Online sales are continuing to rise to record levels and saw an increase of over 60% year on year in the first week of November.
Don’t forget that Cyber week is also an opportunity for fraudsters, so only buy from websites that you trust.
Cyber week and the rise in online commerce is not without it’s problems though and delivery companies are warning of delays. During the first lockdown they were busier than they had been in the run up to Christmas last year and are expecting the Christmas period to be even busier.
The four largest delivery companies in the UK (including Royal Mail) have all stopped taking on new customers.
In addition seaports are struggling to keep up with increased volumes of goods caused by Christmas, and because some shipments were delayed from the first lockdown. Felixstowe, Britains busiest port, is clogged up because 11,000 containers of Government owned PPE have not left the port, and are taking up one third of available inbound container space!
Which of our advertisers are promoting Cyber week?
The Gifts and Occasions websites that we promote are mostly promoting Christmas rather than Cyber Week on their websites. But many are reducing prices during the week. For example The Gift Experience has been introducing special offers through the week and will continue to up to and including Monday.
Tech and appliance companies are making offers includingMy Memory Acer, Honor and Appliance People .
Quite a few of the clothing and fashion companies are promoting Cyber Week including Hype , Evolve Clothing , The Rainy Days ,Sugarhill , ellesse and UKK .
Others making a big deal of Cyber Week include Sewing Online Destiny Jewellery UK and Gardening Naturally .
