Bargains and brawls: Britain embraces Black Friday
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Version 0 of 1. LONDON -- Britons are famously experts at queuing, but scenes on Friday proved they are also very good at stampeding into stores and trampling all over each other in the rush for a good deal. Of all the American traditions to gain traction in Britain in recent years -- many celebrated Thanksgiving this year as my colleague Daniela Deane pointed out -- British retailers are probably most grateful for “Black Friday.” But a day that began with enthusiastic bargain hunting soon descended into scenes of chaos. Police were called into stores in Dundee, Glasgow, Cardiff, London and Manchester to deal with quarrelling customers. Take this footage from a northwest London branch of ASDA. The giant retailer had invited the British press in to witness “safe excitement.” According to the ITV correspondent Richard Gaisford, they saw this instead: PR disaster for @Asda #BlackFriday. Invited national media to witness "safe excitement". Instead chaos, live on @GMB https://t.co/5iISX6jcLp — Richard Gaisford (@richardgaisford) November 28, 2014 PR disaster for @Asda #BlackFriday. Invited national media to witness "safe excitement". Instead chaos, live on @GMB https://t.co/5iISX6jcLp — Richard Gaisford (@richardgaisford) November 28, 2014 A senior police officer at Greater Manchester Police said that some scenes were “akin to a mini riot” and blamed retail stores for not planning for “reasonably predictable” events. Reaction from @DCCIanHopkins after police called to deal with out of control #BlackFriday shoppers. http://t.co/qA1qRY4igl — G M Police (@gmpolice) November 28, 2014 Reaction from @DCCIanHopkins after police called to deal with out of control #BlackFriday shoppers. http://t.co/qA1qRY4igl — G M Police (@gmpolice) November 28, 2014 A Greater Manchester Police spokesman also added that they had closed this Tesco store after a brawl broke out. And the unruly behavior wasn’t just limited to England. This was the scene at one store in Cardiff, Wales: Although Britain is a nation of shoppers, “Black Friday” is a relatively new phenomena here, brought to these shores by Amazon.com in 2010. For the uninitiated, The Guardian offered a “scientific guide” for surviving the day, and the BBC ran segments on its historical roots in the United States. [Disclosure: Amazon.com chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.] John Lewis, one of the Britain’s biggest retailers, said that traffic on its Web site between midnight at 6 a.m. was up 307 percent compared to last year, and that the Apple iPad mini was its best-selling item. Visa Europe predicted that shoppers would be racking up about $9,400 every second and that Black Friday would be Britain’s biggest online shopping day of the year -- that is, assuming retailers' Web sites have been able to cope with the demand: |