Black Friday internet shopping dominates
Shoppers opted to hunt down bargains online yesterday as the dominance of internet shopping continued to rise for Black Friday purchases.
Shopping centres appeared relatively quiet as industry figures warned that the US retail import was not necessarily the best for businesses or consumers.
SHOPPERS OPTED to hunt down bargains online yesterday as the dominance of internet shopping continued to rise for Black Friday purchases.
Shopping centres appeared relatively quiet as industry figures warned that the US retail import was not necessarily the best for businesses or consumers.
Richard Hyman, a retail industry adviser, claimed the concept of Black Friday was “bonkers” for UK retailers, adding: “The whole thing is smoke and mirrors.”
Mr Hyman said: “It’s encouraging people to buy at a discount when most retailers are not structured to sell at a discount. Black Friday sucks business forward from Christmas at a discounted margin, it’s really not very clever.”
This leaves businesses with few options, he added: “Do you discount regular products that hit your margins, or do you buy in special products to mitigate that hit?”
Those special products, he said, were “bound to be inferior”.
“Most retailers, I would say, would really rather not do it if they felt they could,” he said.
Some retailers have decided to opt out of Black Friday this year, including Marks & Spencer. An M&S spokesman said the store was “not about ‘full scale discounting’, but instead offering all year round great value for all our customers”.
Cyber security chiefs at GCHQ also advised shoppers to be wary of risks and to take precautions when buying online, such as using the guest checkout and having a separate “super-protected” password for your email account.
Despite the usual buzz around the shopping event, research also suggested shoppers’ interest in Black Friday may be plateauing.
A PwC survey also revealed the buzz around Black Friday deals may have depleted both in stores and online. The average shopper, they anticipated, would splash £234 over the weekend, the same amount as 2017. Half of the 2,000 UK adults PwC surveyed said they were not interested in Black Friday sales, and 11 per cent would intentionally avoid stores.
But Liz Mills, 31, a customer service manager from Bradford, was adamant that she hoped to take full advantage of the Black Friday deals – and took the day off work to ensure she could while shopping in Leeds.
She said: “We do Black Friday every year. We booked the day off work to come shopping and we’ve come over to Leeds especially because it has got such good options. We like to come to the shops because when you shop online it can be misleading. It’s much better to see things in real life.”
Retailer group The New West End Company, which represents three key shopping streets in central London, predicted the same turnover as 2017, £150m, across the 2018 Black Friday weekend. The group, which represents retailers on Oxford Street, Bond Street and Regent Street, said they did not expect the “mad crowds” seen in previous years.
Other retailers – including Carphone Warehouse, Currys PC World and John Lewis – all reported busy online shopping periods since launching their Black Friday sales on Thursday night. Carphone Warehouse said it received 14 orders per minute on its site, while Currys PC World revealed it had seen a 623 per cent increase in computing sales on 2017’s figures.
Meanwhile, HSBC has become the latest high street bank to report IT issues after customers were locked out of their online accounts on the busiest shopping day of the year. The bank said that some customers were yesterday experiencing “intermittent issues” logging onto HSBC’s mobile phone app.
Most retailers would really rather not do it if they felt they could.
Richard Hyman, a retail industry adviser.