Local independent businesses raise concerns at the impact of Black Friday

Black Friday is expected to have a negative effect on independent businesses such as cosmetic, DIY and home appliance stores.

These retailers have raised concerns about the power and impact that the annual end-of-November event holds, describing Black Friday as: “The worst thing possible.”

Big on DIY’s operations director Raj Dev said: “It’s so difficult for small companies like us. As a smaller branded goods distributor, we have to go up against the big boys like Curry’s and Amazon.”

Raj Dev also commented: “One of the things about Black Friday is that it is price driven, you can provide the best service but people are uninterested.”

Online shops such as Amazon have launched their Black Friday deals early and for an extended period of time.

In 2015, Black Friday was the biggest day of shopping in Britain as two billion pounds was spent in one day, both online and in store.

A spokesperson from Cocktail Cosmetics described Black Friday as: “The worst thing possible.”

She added: “It has a massive effect on us being an independent store. Most of our products are imported from America, so we have to pay these costs, and then we are expected to apply huge discounts on top, which is not good for business.”

Black Friday is difficult for smaller businesses to compete as they have to maintain profit from sales. Therefore, they can’t offer huge discounts to customers the same way larger stores can.

This is similar to Awan International, a wholesaler in Birmingham. Amer Awon at Awan International said: “Being a wholesaler, we do not partake in Black Friday in store. But we are significant online with Amazon, this is the only benefit so we rely on these retailers.”

In the United States, ‘Small Business Saturday’ has been created to celebrate local merchants. This encourages shoppers to shop at these independent stores, which gives these retailers a chance to compete against their larger competitors at this time.

It has not yet become a popular tradition in the United Kingdom, but after the success of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, this may become a new celebrated day in Britain in the future.

![endif]--![endif]--

#business #blackfriday #shops #retailers