Europe`s Retailers Tempt Shoppers with Black Friday Deals
25 November 2017 12:58 WIB
TEMPO.CO, London - Retailers across Europe chased shoppers on Black Friday in a test of consumer demand, particularly in Britain, where the spending spree imported from the U.S. looked set to outdo last year.
After last month suffering their biggest decline in sales volumes for four-and-a-half years, British retailers are pinning their hopes on discounts to get shoppers squeezed by inflation and subdued wage growth spending again.
In Britain, the annual promotional event, traditionally focused on electrical goods, has been mainly played out online since 2014, when in-store sales were marred by scuffles.
The jury remains out on whether retailers make money by cutting prices in an event that was imported to Britain from the United States by online retailer Amazon in 2010.
By 3 p.m., Barclaycard, which processes nearly half of UK debit and credit card transactions, had seen an 8 percent increase in spending compared to last year, and a 32 percent increase in transactions.
"Consumers may be opting to buy more goods at a lower price rather than investing in a handful of higher-value items," said Barclaycard's Paulette Rowe.
Department store John Lewis said its busiest shopping hour had been 9-10 a.m., with an average 705 items ordered per minute.
"It will be our busiest trading day of the year," John Rogers, chief executive of electricals-to-toys retailer Argos, owned by Britain's second-biggest retailer Sainsbury's, told Reuters.
The research firm GlobalData forecasts that UK spending in the period Nov. 20 to 27 - will be up 3.8 percent from last year at 10.1 billion pounds.
REUTERS
