Black Friday: bargains and protests

Shoppers across the world hit the street and the internet for Black Friday shopping with global sales topping $40 billion this year.

Black Friday originated in the US, in the 1950s. It falls on the day after Thanksgiving which marks the start of the holiday shopping season. However, it's now spread around the world as a day when retailers offer major discounts on products.

Whilst Cyber sales have rocketed in recent years, after the pandemic shoppers in search of a bargain were delighted to return to the major high street of retail shops in New York. But given the economic crisis and high inflation affecting so many countries how is this impacting spending?

Antonia Harris: "With the holiday coming up, Christmas, the people are willing to spend ahead of themselves a little bit, to make sure they're having festivities. And in there, a sea of people coming in the door, oh my goodness, it doesn't look like anything slowed down, not even a little."

Many shoppers come from out of state to shop in the city. Does this mean they’re spending more or less than last year?

Samy Kunz: "I think it made us look for sales more so than we usually would, just to be conservative with how much we're spending."

Chase Moore: "Definitely more than usual!"

Chase Moore: "I have already spent way more that's in my budget. In grad school currently, so budget is like negative 300. So, we're, where, we've, we've already crossed that just by being in New York City."

But this excited holiday spending doesn’t meet with universal approval. In Spain Greenpeace protestors took up position in one of Madrid's busiest shopping streets. Celia Ojeda Martinez works for Greenpeace Spain.

Celia Ojeda Martinez: "What Greenpeace is denouncing here today is not so much the consumers, who also have a role to play, but the big brands and big companies that continue to produce products that are less and less durable, of lower quality, with toxic products that end up polluting because they end up incinerated and in landfills."

For Greenpeace the environmental issues are closely linked to the big brands encouragement of consumerism pushing people to buy things that they perhaps don’t need.

Celia Ojeda Martinez: "Black Friday is about how brands encourage us to buy one more pair of jeans when we already have six exactly the same in our wardrobe. To produce one pair of jeans, it takes 7,500 liters of water, which is the same amount of water a person drinks and consumes for seven years."

Black Friday has now extended its reach and continues through Cyber Monday before the big sales period begins in December. View Less