Surviving Black Friday: what to know ahead of the UK sales | Black Friday

Black Friday may be a recent phenomenon, but sales have been a part of British winter for decades – and they’ve always been regarded with suspicion by those who feel they’re above such things. I remember 70s newsreaders chuckling over footage of fights in the Boxing Day sales between women of previously good character, all desperate to grab the last half-price vacuum cleaner. How amusing, and how sad, said the newsreaders’ faces.

I don’t share their snobbery. Black Friday can save people an awful lot of money on things they’ve wanted to buy for themselves and others but have struggled to afford during the cost of living crisis. But writing about it is a tightrope. You want to offer sincere, useful shopping advice without coming across like a puppet of commerce, and that’s a tricky path to navigate.

When I set out to gather comments from experts for my article on Black Friday shopping tips, I was keen to avoid quoting brand reps with “ker-ching” in their eyes and feature independent commentators only. But my keenness was nothing compared with the wild hunger of company spokespeople. The moment word got out, I was battered with “advice” that entirely boiled down to news of retailers’ forthcoming discounts. Sellers gonna sell.

But among the bids for free advertising, there were some interesting takes from the commercial frontline. This was especially true for small businesses like skincare brand Ella & Jo, whose founders talked about how Black Friday is a creative challenge and invaluable for connecting with new customers, particularly through social media.

That chimed with stats I’d received from student platform UNiDAYS, which reckons generation Z (12- to 27-year-olds) will “spend £566m this Black Friday and Cyber Monday”. Young people struggling with student debt and low wages have no qualms about leaping into discount sales, and they can teach the rest of us a thing or two about how to do it well. For them, following brands on Instagram and TikTok is an essential part of shopping. Those of us who grew up with department stores and strict ASA-compliant adverts may see social media as a weird or even stupid place to shop, but it is central to the savviest young shoppers’ strategy. Know the brand you love, connect with it and be first in the queue for the best deals.

I was also delighted to be party to some intra-industry slagging off during my research. A few experts claimed rivals were cheating their customers by artificially hiking prices in October so they’d look like genuine Black Friday reductions, while others claimed retailers pushed sub-standard goods on Black Friday to get rid of them. Waste was another common theme that brand spokespeople wished to distance themselves from. Hotpoint’s Fergus Johnston urged shoppers to prioritise sustainability, and Back Market’s Katy Medlock warned that Black Friday promotes overconsumption.

She’s not wrong. Waste and debt are Black Friday’s ugly sisters. As I set out in my guide to surviving Black Friday, you save money by buying at a reduced price only if you were going to buy those items anyway. I’m unsettled to learn that of the nearly £26bn that Adobe forecasts UK shoppers will spend this November and December, £3.4bn is expected to have been done so using buy-now-pay-later loans. Is this money people can afford to spend? If not, no discount makes it worth spending. Black Friday is not the enemy, but only if you take advantage of it, rather than letting it take advantage of you.

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