Remember the halcyon days of yore when next to no one knew what Black Friday was? And the few that did thought it was a phenomenon localised to the US – like Walmart or health insurance or gun crime or diabetes.
‘Black Friday’ is the first shopping day of Christmas and its origins are attributed far and wide – from the day retailers start to turn a profit to the best day to buy slaves. Regardless, Black Friday has come to be a staple of American consumerism* and a cultural phenomenon. Said phenomenon first truly hit the UK in 2014 after some marketing prick at Asda had tentatively introduced it in 2013. After a slow start it was last year when American style chaos crossed the Atlantic in style leading Asda** -amongst others – opting out of the celebrations in 2015.
This Christmas I took a job as a Christmas temp in a leading UK retailer in my small market home town. Even in my brief job interview Black Friday was mentioned with something approaching awe; a looming presence on the horizon. The manager puffed out their cheeks in solemn respect for the enormity that lay ahead – questioning if I had the bottle to even attempt to take it on. After quickly proving I could stand upright unaided, I signed my contract with less than a month until ‘B-Day’. Time passed and on 27th November I left the store at 6pm, to return at 6am the next day – Black Friday was upon us.
As I crawled from bed at 5.00am I slipped into my cheap polyester shirt and met with my two reliable early morning companions; Cutter’s Choice and Nescafé. I dragged myself to the store and was let in. Six members of staff were already in the store when I arrived (some since 4am) and, after being admonished for only arriving two minutes before my shift started, I stood around for an hour waiting for a last minute delivery of bargain goods. More and more staff arrived during this hour, including five drafted in from the mysterious ‘head office’ to help us out***.
The delivery came, went and was put away – still with very little sign of customer activity. Time passed. More staff arrived. Customers did start to filter in and out after about 9am but the presence of what was now approaching 20 staff negated any rush****. I spent most of the morning sweeping the stockroom to relieve boredom until 11.15am when I was sent on an unprecedented break of 2 hours and 45 minutes with the proviso from my manager: “I’m expecting the rush to come later.”
I returned at 1.55pm. The cabal of managers and supervisors continued to wait for Godot and the rush they were sure was round the corner. In all truth it did get busy – it just wasn’t the crash-bang we’d been promised. It certainly wasn’t the glamour we’ve come to associate with the media’s portrayal of Black Friday; the masses, the drama. I’ve been constantly assured it was busy a year ago but I can’t help thinking my town had their fill of Black Friday then and there. The rest of the world was in chaos but we were cursed, as it always seems in this little town, to watch ruefully from the sidelines as the rest of the world exploded into chaos.
As the day dragged by, customers came and went – getting their hands on a discount tablet here, £5 off a chest freezer there. The shift ended much as it had started with me sloping off into the darkness. Leaving an empty store (that would remain open for two hours) I trudged home – in spite of an easy, if long shift – feeling the day, so long looming in the near future, had been nothing but a huge anti-climax.
Had Black Friday just been overhyped? Was the worldwide shift to online sales the death of Black Friday? This wasn’t really a localised phenomenon as retailers pushed online discounts and sales spread across several days after the carnage of last year. Black Friday was an anti-climax across the UK. My experience, however, said less about UK shopping patterns and more about the depressing nature of small town life. Let’s face it, regardless of the preventative measures, it was busy in the bigger cities.
This is why Black Friday cannot work in the UK. It’s the small market towns, it’s the isolation. In London, Birmingham, Cardiff there’s hype and people to fill it. That’s what the emails and the crisis meetings and the decorations are for. But there isn’t the demand in Dunstable or Aylesbury, no one wants to queue at 5am or fight over a toaster. Small chain retail stores get the same pamphlets and posters as the superstores in main cities, the same memos, the same motivational leaflets. They react as if they are in the eye of the storm, batten down the hatches and brace themselves for a crisis that never comes. My various managers and supervisors seemed desperate to have hordes knocking the door down or people scrapping over the last injection-moulded piece of tat; yet not enough people came.
This is small town life as it’s purist. It looks similar to real life but it’s empty. You’re dressed the same as the X-Factor contestants but you’re dancing in a Wetherspoons, hoping you can telemarket tomorrow with a vicious hangover. For every one branch of Currys in a big city there are tens in small, dead-end towns where the staff waited eagerly for their chance to join in with the big boys. Of course Oxford Street was rammed and some shops employed a hundred members of staff but mostly it was retailers in small market towns bracing themselves for a rush they were doomed to be left waiting for. Their biggest day of the year got rained off.
Britain had enough of Black Friday last year and the novelty has already worn off. Everyone in small town retail was yearning to join the big leagues and share something with the big apartment stores. Anything to relieve the monotony. The employees had looked forward to Black Friday catapulting their lives out of the dulldrums for just one day. Yet the small towns up and down Britain just gave a small shrug and wandered past the store fronts without a second glance. Perhaps this is where we differ from the Americans; every year yanks punch and kick over TVs and stereos but we’ve given up – it’s too exciting all this fanaticism, we tried it once so we won’t bother again.
*www.blackfridaydeathcount.com – 7 fatalities at the time of writing
**Cowards. This was all their fault and they couldn’t see it through
***We had one customer during this time and he was there to pick up something he’d ordered online.
****A fellow Christmas temp told me he was on ‘carrier bag duty’ for nearly 4 hours. That involved bagging stuff for people who had bought a carrier bag.
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