As you might well be aware, this year Black Friday is on the 23rd November a relatively new phenomena on British shores, but Stateside it goes back as far as 1952 where it’s widely regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Black Friday always takes place the day after Thanksgiving in the States.

Widely known as the busiest shopping day in the US, and also increasingly in the UK too, it presents a distinct opportunity for retailers who, for the most part, have jumped aboard. But, is Black Friday an opportunity for smaller independent businesses?

The hype around the day has the effect of putting people into a state of spending. Consumers believe that this particular day is the best to make all purchases as they perceive the prices to be rock bottom.

In the early days, it only seemed to be large online retailers who got into the spirit of the day offering Black Friday deals. However, recently we’ve seen many smaller retailers jumping on the bandwagon, with many seeing increased sales for that particular weekend.

Not only is it a potential opportunity to boost sales, it can also be a great way to reduce unwanted stock and drive footfall to none sales items in a store. If you have an ecommerce website, you can sell right through the weekend and take advantage of the increased web traffic between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.