As we approach one of the biggest sale events of the year, we are intrigued as to how many consumers are being enticed by even more brands taking part in the Black Friday Sales – in order to increase consumer demand and raise the competition.

Black Friday’s marketing strategy has soared over time, shifting from a high street phenomenon in 2013 to a digital phenomenon in 2019. Many people are not aware of the history behind this name, as consumers tend to just look at it as the ‘pre-Christmas shopping craze’ and the best time to get ‘deals’. Rather than where it originally came from, during the financial crisis, retailers in the United States would record their accounting details by hand and noted their profits in black and their losses in red. They would usually ‘go into the black’ the day after Thanksgiving when consumers would purchase a significant amount of discounted goods.

Black Friday was introduced to the UK in 2010 by the online retail giant Amazon. However, last year’s sales did see a shift, with the footfall of high street shoppers down by 4.5% as more people were opting to purchase their items online. It will be interesting to see this year’s figures as they will most certainly be a lot higher for online purchases due to the COVID-19 pandemic and still being under the current lockdown 2.0 restrictions with non-essential shops not being able to open.