Black Friday came, as most domineering capitalist ideas do, from the USA. It was the idea of some canny retailers, filling the public holiday void between Thanksgiving on the Thursday and the weekend; a holiday that bores the American public as much as Boxing Day does for us Brits. So why not shop?
Then, it came over here....
Last year people went nuts for it. And why wouldn't they? Massive discounts on big-ticket items just a month before Christmas? Which self-respecting consumer wouldn't want a piece of that? But the police weren't so keen when a little bit of public disorder kicked-off over a 40-inch flat-screen TV.
So, in a perhaps surprising move, Asda has said it wants no part of Black Friday, and will instead discount over the festive season. (Conversely, John Lewis, said: "We are part of this whether we want to be or not.")
This will come as a relief to those in logistics, for whom a sales-spike just days before the Christmas peak is unwelcome to say the least.
Yodel boss Dick Stead even warned back in July that Yodel could not cope with another Black Friday like last year’s while operating a 24-hour delivery service.
“I’d have to do an 800% uplift in drivers for the day and triple the size of our delivery network. It just won’t happen.”
Following on from Asda's strategic withdrawal from Black Friday yesterday Mike Danby, CEO of Advanced Supply Chain, said: “Black Friday 2014 pushed big brand retailers’ logistics operations to the brink, and indeed some really did buckle under the pressure.
"It’s a bold move to step back from one of the biggest shopping days of the year, and Asda seems to believe it’s truly what its customers want, but logistical pressures will have also been considered within that decision. If there is any failure in a supply chain around Black Friday, the potential impact on customer experience is considerable," he said.
Danby added: “Every retailer will blink as to its own Black Friday plans now Asda has called time out. Huge operational pressures are applied in the days surrounding Black Friday, and logistics professionals at the big brand retailers need to be supremely confident in their arrangements and have meticulously planned for every eventuality.”