Black Friday sales hit, miss

MOST retail and wholesale stores offering bargains yesterday, Black Friday, have recorded higher turnovers in a single day than any other day of the year. In recent years, the tradition, which originated in the US, has caught on in TT, with major companies like PriceSmart, Excellent Stores and even KFC, slashing their prices to just a fraction of the original figure.

In turn, the stores attract customers in their thousands, waiting outside closed doors long before opening hours, before storming through the aisles and loading their carts with all sorts of merchandise.

Yesterday brought the expected rush at PriceSmart's three locations in Mausica, Port of Spain and Chaguanas. From 6 am, shoppers were seen scampering to the electronics department towards the most popular items, large flat screen televisions and computers. To better deal with the considerable increase in demand, PriceSmart's sale will continue until Sunday. Courts' multiple locations, it appeared, attracted the largest crowds. There were various deals offered, which changed every few hours, over the course of the day.

Unfortunately, while PriceSmart, Courts and some other stores saw sales soar, it comes at the expense of other shops, even those that also offered sales on the day.

Newsday visited both West Mall, Westmoorings and Long Circular Mall, St James, where advertisements for Black Friday sales seemingly failed to attract a considerable increase in customer traffic.

One person, who spoke with Newsday, said he was not impressed with many of the sales on offer and said he believed some stores deceptively increased their prices then advertised a sale to give the impression that the customer could save considerably when the difference was really insignificant.

The one-day sale picked up in the US during the 1950s, although it was not then known as Black Friday. It occurs the day after Thanksgiving – the fourth Thursday of November – and unofficially marks the start of the Christmas shopping season in the US.

Many companies close for the day as employees have increasingly started taking the day off from work to enjoy a four-day weekend, a tradition TT – ranked seventh in the world for public holidays – might also be inclined to adopt.