With a noticeable lack of customers and increasing online deals being offered, the once chaos-inducing Black Friday has seen a decline in interest from in person shoppers.
After a visit to the Intu Victoria Centre, Nottingham’s staple shopping complex, it could be argued that Black Friday has lost its popularity.
Visits to shops including; Urban Outfitters, John Lewis, Pandora, and many more showed a clear lack in shoppers and an even clearer lack in promotion of the stores’ Black Friday deals.
Could this be due to COVID and the need for space and ventilation inside the shops?
This seems like the most logical reason, due to the rise in Corona virus cases in Nottingham and the fact that November 30 is seeing the re-introduction of mandatory masks to all users of public transport and shoppers in the UK.
Another factor that could lead to the downfall of Black Friday is Cyber Monday and the weekend of online deals.
Online brands like ASOS, Pretty Little Thing, Gym Shark, and even Amazon dominated the Black Friday weekend with deals soaring as high as 80 per cent off.
Fast fashion brand Pretty Little Thing even held an event where they were offering shoppers up to 100 per cent off items with tops starting as low as 10p and jeans and dresses being sold for free with buyers only having to pay for shipping.
With these kinds of deals being accessible from the comfort of your own home, why would anyone want to go out for their Black Friday shopping.
Honestly Black Friday and cyber Monday sales were so disappointing this year
— 𝐴𝑙𝑒𝑗𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑟𝑎 (@Aleeisan) November 30, 2021
It appears that even the predominantly in store focused brands decided to take their deals online with John Lewis, Boots and Apple amongst the thousands of brands offering higher discounts off products if you bought them online compared to buying them in person.
A rumour also circulated the high street that stores were not pushing their deals to in person shoppers due to a shortage of products with Apple even running out of iPads.
Many Twitter users displayed their disinterest with the Black Friday deals, with one writing: “Black Friday sales were so abysmal, multiple retailers are looking at potential bankruptcy.”
With cities across the country relying specifically on the intake of their shopping complex’s, as Nottingham does with the Victoria Centre, stores not improving and promoting their Black Friday deals could be a matter of financial life or death.
