Black Friday: How could you SHUT DOWN the store?

Black Friday is exhilarating massive customers and retailers every year, while a Welsh store in Cardiff chose to close on the big shopping day. 

The well-known big shopping day, Black Friday, came and swept the whole nation last week, while an audiovisual products brand chose to close its stores on that day this year to show its stance against it.

Bang & Olufsen is a high-end audio-visual brand selling televisions, audio systems and home automation products worldwide. Its flagship store in Cardiff was shut down last Friday and gave its staff one paid day off to protest the trend of Black Day.

The marketing manager of Bang & Olufsen, Shaun Houcke, said, “We want to give our staff an opportunity to spend time with their family and not get cost up in this messy frenzy and consumerism nature of Black Friday.”

Shaun thinks the Black Friday may not be a good thing and there shouldn’t be a price difference between the two periods of time.

He said, “I don’t think it is right that you might buy a product now in December and then two or three days later, it’s half price. That just doesn’t seem to be honest and fair because the company is still making money at the end of the day. So if they can afford to sell at half price, it means it was overpriced before. And customers who bought the product with the original price will be upset and feel be cheated. So we just don’t do that.”
George Waston, the senior sales associate at the store also said that brands and stores should focus on quality and the value brought about by product. He believes the customers come to buy products from them is because of the value rather than discount.

The marketing manager, Shaun, said they will do this again next year on the so-called Black Friday. “We will never open on Black Friday,” he said.
The action of this store has also received massive positive feedback from customers on the Internet. Many people expressed their support through Facebook and appreciate it as “a fantastic idea”.

Apparently, some people seem to get tired of this kind of crazy and furious “shopping day” gimmick. It is observed that some stores are using Black Friday sale as a marketing tool to get rid of the stock and stimulate more customers to visit the stores.

Black Friday, which is originally from America, became prevalent in the UK since 2013 under numerous hyped adverts and tempting discount put out by retailing business.

After the fever of the last two year, this year, people seem to be more calmed and determined.

Claire Andrew, the sales assistant of Givenchy cosmetics at Debenhams in St. David Shopping Center, said, “I think people know what to expect this year. Two years ago, I was working in another department. And I think that was the first year people really experience it in the UK, and it was insane. There were queues early in the morning and people all came in one day. We weren’t really as prepared as we could be at that time, and it went as soon as it came. However, this year, it’s a little different. People are more calmed. They know what they want and just come in to buy.”
Claire experienced the craze of Black Friday two years ago, she said, after the previous frenzy, they had done a lot of preparation this year and some sales actually started earlier on Tuesday.

“I feel like the customers are more spread out. People even came in the day before to see what they wanted and then come back in. So customers are more even this year, and it’s also happy to see customers enjoying shopping a little bit more, instead of getting frustrated with the queue,” said Claire.