Does A "Black Friday" Type of Sales Event Happen in Your Country?

Here in the States, the day after Thanksgiving Day (which is the last Thursday in November has become known as "Black Friday", where stores online and offline have incredible (and not so incredible) deals on items in the lead up to Christmas.

I just read an article that Singles Day in China (Nov. 11) is similar, and the online retailer Alibaba racked up 1 billion USD (6+ billion Yuan) in sales in under 5 minutes!

Does your country have a similar shopping holiday, and is it worth it?

In typical American style, we've taken the whole Black Friday thing to another level, with stores opening on Thanksgiving Day (which used to be where all stores were closed, and you are supposed to spend time with your family), and staying open 24+ hours. Search YouTube for some disastrous Black Friday mobs where they act like a pack of rabid wolves just to grab some "doorbuster" deal that they can't simply live without. Does similar chaos erupt in your home country?

Yeah they do it here in Canada too. They even call it Black Friday and its usually after the American Thanksgiving (Canada's is in October).

Edit: or maybe it's after our Thanksgiving? I could be wrong. I don't pay much attention to sales lol.

In the UK it sucks. It's basically Amazon and Argos selling off all the shit they won't get rid of at Christmas.

  On 11/10/2016 at 10:00 PM, fletcher said:

In the UK it sucks. It's basically Amazon and Argos selling off all the shit they won't get rid of at Christmas.

What's it called in the UK?

Black Friday.

We also stole Halloween.

This year, my friend in Oxford is having a Thanksgiving party. We are basically turning into little USA.

Yeah, the media whip it up a bit. I think last year some shops (ASDA probably) had to close when the chavs starting beating the shit out of each other over some flat screen TVs or something of that ilk. Hopefully this year they'll be more similar stories to smirk at (unless of course some innocent bargain hunter gets hurt)

Personally I couldn't give a monkeys about sales, as whatever I want is always guaranteed not to be included. Its always the way.

  On 11/10/2016 at 10:05 PM, fletcher said:

Black Friday.

We also stole Halloween.

This year, my friend in Oxford is having a Thanksgiving party. We are basically turning into little USA.

some stores do "black friday" deals here now due to amazon, etc + globalization making people aware of the american tradition. But we don't have a store-rushing day or a crazy sales day or anything like that, no

In Norway we call it Black Metal.

Some businesses have tried to import the concept to Finland but it isn't widely adopted. I can't remember if I saw any black friday stuff last year.

I live in a medium-sized city in Italy (~200.000 people) and yes, we have an event like that called Black Friday as it is in the US. It's pretty new, it exists since maybe 3 or 4 years. From what I have seen, all the major shops in the city centre — basically just apparel's — offer discounts on some items, usually 20% to 40%. I know in the US the big thing about Black Fridays are the malls and big retail shops offering crazy deals, but I don't think we have such a thing here. Of course there's Amazon and other websites for that (if I recall correctly there's also Cyber Monday at some point).

On the same topic, we also have Halloween, with kids wearing costumes going house to house asking for sweets but again, it's only limited to the city centre, basically.

no Black Friday here in the Middle East, all Christian or Christian derived events are banned under Sharia law, no:

Halloween

Thanksgiving

Black Friday

Christmas

Gregorian New Year

Valentine's Day

St Patrick's Day

Easter

not to mention:

No drugs

No alcohol

No pork

No dating

No public music

No movie theaters

No swimming

No revealing clothing

No porn

No pre-marital sex

No LGBT people allowed

No STD infected people allowed

No blasphemy allowed

No witchcraft / sorcery allowed

No Jews allowed

I keep thinking we need a Black Friday themed zombie game

Yep. Not many years (3-5?) since I saw the first Black Friday ads HERE IN Norway, but last year and this year the newspapers and social ads are full of it. We've also adopted halloween and Valentines day. Since I'm growing into a grumpy old guy I really hate when we adopt american traditions, and let go of our own, just because SPEND MORE MONEY! BUY SHIT!

  On 11/11/2016 at 9:22 AM, scumtron said:

Yep. Not many years (3-5?) since I saw the first Black Friday ads HERE IN Norway, but last year and this year the newspapers and social ads are full of it. We've also adopted halloween and Valentines day. Since I'm growing into a grumpy old guy I really hate when we adopt american traditions, and let go of our own, just because SPEND MORE MONEY! BUY SHIT!

Have more things to celebrate? You know everyday is really a holiday. it's just that we forget it too often.

  On 11/11/2016 at 9:06 AM, ambermonk said:

I keep thinking we need a Black Friday themed zombie game apocalypse

I don't think it's a thing here yet (could be wrong though), and I hadn't heard of it existing anywhere at all until a couple of years ago.

I think perhaps the Norwegian Apple-shop started using the expression Black Friday over here, but I might be wrong.

  On 11/10/2016 at 10:05 PM, fletcher said:

We also stole Halloween.

halloween or all hallows eve is a pagan festival that has been celebrated in the british isles for thousands of years. we did not steal it in any way, precisely the opposite in fact.

Over here it used to be the 'January Sales'  and happen on 1st of January. That somehow moved closer and closer to Christmas and now happens on Boxing Day.

We started to adopt the Black Friday thing the last few years.

also, black friday has very much fallen out of vogue in the uk and a number of retailers have stated they will not be taking part this year or in future.

  On 11/11/2016 at 10:29 AM, BCM said:

 

  On 11/10/2016 at 10:05 PM, fletcher said:

We also stole Halloween.

halloween or all hallows eve is a pagan festival that has been celebrated in the british isles for thousands of years. we did not steal it in any way, precisely the opposite in fact.

We stole the Americanised Halloween.

The original pagan Halloween is not really celebrated is it?

-Black Friday

-Pre Christmas sale

-Boxing day sale (not really on boxing day but from 27th to 31th)

-New years sale from Jan 2nd.

Gotta have'em all

There was that trash TV programme about people saving lots of money on Black Friday but spending thousands of dollars on a van load full of tat. Don't remember the name but in a thousand years it will be talked about in the same way as Steinbeck is talked about now fow show mofo. 

  On 11/11/2016 at 10:37 AM, fletcher said:

 

  On 11/11/2016 at 10:29 AM, BCM said:

 

  On 11/10/2016 at 10:05 PM, fletcher said:

We also stole Halloween.

halloween or all hallows eve is a pagan festival that has been celebrated in the british isles for thousands of years. we did not steal it in any way, precisely the opposite in fact.

We stole the Americanised Halloween.

The original pagan Halloween is not really celebrated is it?

yeah course it is, it's obviously now hugely commercialised, which may be the doing of america but probably not really, it's just the way of things. plus there are actually a few people who celebrate samhain still in some of the more rural areas.