British Shoppers Go Crazy for Black Friday
Posted on November 28, 2014
Until this year, Black Friday was a uniquely American event. Oh sure, in 2010, Amazon.com decided to extend its Black Friday deals to its UK customers. But mostly the biggest shopping and sale day of the year was ignored in Europe.Not anymore.
We blame the British media. For the past couple of years the British media has delighted in running major coverage featuring crazed Americans battling it out for giant screen TVs at a huge discount. The attitude was "oh, those Americans, aren't they just awful?" Well, they can't look down their noses at us any longer. This year the BBC, The Guardian and The Telegraph are running video and photos of crazed British shoppers who have obviously been paying attention on how to do Black Friday -- American Style.
Clearly, the lure of incredible deals on everything from electronics to clothes to perfume is a universal thing. Scenes all over the UK were of police trying to keep order as people broke out of their orderly lines to charge the local Tesco which sells groceries and giant televisions. People got into fist fights, crowds refused to leave stores when told items had already sold out and a very high end luxury outlet mall in Oxfordshire had to close because the promise of 80% discounts on Black Friday had snarled traffic nearby for miles.
The BBC reports that police were called to numerous stores to quell problems and that generally speaking it was chaos out there. Local police took to Twitter to warn customers they could be arrested for assault if they shove someone to the floor to get a hot deal on a toaster.
The Telegraph (which is referring to the day as "Black and Blue Friday" in its print edition) has footage of the opening at a north-west London branch of the supermarket chain Asda when it opened this morning. People quickly burst through the doors, knock people over and generally go berserk over televisions. Take a look: