11 November

Would you walk over a dying man for a Smart TV? Or would you punch a fellow shopper in the face for a pair of Levis jeans? Neither would the British public it would seem. Black Friday 2015, the biggest shopping event of the year in the US, and generator of Youtube videos that highlight the pinnacle of human absurdity, has been cancelled in the UK this year. Asda, the British leg of American juggernaut Walmart, who were key players in introducing the vulgar tradition of brawls for bargains in the UK, have stated that shoppers are ‘fatigued’, and that ‘flash sales on big-ticket, non-essential items at Christmas’ are not what the British public want.

ASDA are set to invest £26 million in savings across the seasonal shopping period, as opposed to holding shoppers ‘hostage’ to one day of savings on November 27th. John Lewis has also warned that firms would have to reconsider Black Friday’s heavy discounting, although last year the shop-floor showdown brought the company its biggest trading week on record.

This development, to the logical person who doesn’t have the wish to turn Tyler Durden in Tesco, is of course a good thing. However, the move is not without its risks – October showed “disappointing” retail sales, attributed to the anticipation  for Black Friday.

On the other side of the pond however, Alibaba has said “open sesame” to its largest ever Singles Day profit, with $1 billion spent within 8 minutes of the day commencing, and $9.3 billion by midday. In a somewhat ominous and super-villain-esque statement, chief executive of the Chinese giant Daniel Zhang said “the whole world will witness the power of Chinese consumption”. However, China shows no signs of speeding up any time soon, with many shoppers simply having waited for the discounts of Singles Day to do their shopping.

Duke Fay