Asda ditches Black Friday due to “customer feedback”

Asda, says “shopper fatigue” has set in and is ditching its Black Friday one-day discount frenzy.

The supermarket giant is investing £26 million of savings instead for shoppers across the whole of the Christmas season.

Black Friday, a US tradition is a day some retailers offer large discounts and Asda the US owned supermarket giant is widely credited with importing the slightly disturbing shopping trend.

The event has become something of a UK ‘mediafest’ with equal numbers of camera crews and local hacks falling over frenzied shoppers battling one another for flat-screen TV bargains.

In some instances, police have been called to shopping centres to calm crowds in the early hours of the morning, and no doubt this sort of negative coverage will have made the Walmart-owned outfit twitchy about its ‘brand image’ after they and other supermarket chains faced criticism for the poor handling of ‘Black Friday’ last year.

Tesco plan to go ahead with the Black Friday bonaza (ker-ching) and after listing to ‘customer feedback, they plan to have enough staff and security on hand to deal with the baying mobs.

Greater Manchester Police response to last years Black Friday events at Tesco stores in their region.

Asda Chief Executive Clarke said:

“Over the last two years we’ve developed an organised, well-executed plan, but this year customers have told us loud and clear that they don’t want to be held hostage to a day or two of sales.

“With an ever-changing retail landscape, now more than ever we must listen carefully to exactly what our shoppers want and be primed and ready to act the minute their needs change.

“When it comes to putting customers first, Asda has always led the way, which is why we’re just as confident in our decision to step away from Black Friday as we were in introducing it to the UK.”

Herd Mentality.

While ‘sales’ are nothing new in the UK, Boxing day being a prime example, Black Friday has taken ‘herd’ mentality to a new level with shoppers mindlessly throwing themselves into the stores in search of another pointless bargain, “like lemmings throwing themselves off cliff edges” – says Dr Mark McDermott Professor of Psychology at the University of East London

“We know that what makes us most happy is the quality of our relationships with our friends and family, and yet we are putting so much value and store on having a new TV.”

“Shopping in the sales is a social experience, it’s a group experience and everybody likes to be part of a group.”

Or could it be just be another case of us copying whatever the Americans do?

Dr McDermott continues:

“I do think we do look to North America too often for a lead on things,” asserted Mark, “when we should be looking to ourselves. I think the Beatles had it right when they said ‘money can’t buy you love’. So why don’t we trust our own intuitions instead of looking across the pond for a lead?”

When is Black Friday?

27 November 2015

Enjoy…