When you hear the words ‘Black Friday’, what goes through your mind?
Unbelievably cheap TVs or complete and utter chaos in Tesco at 4am with boots and fists flying?
A little of both probably, but it’s not only the big retailers who are flogging off the family silver at cut-down prices, we’ve decided to jump on that particular bandwagon with a ‘too good to miss’ deal of our own…
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***THE LIQUID BLACK FRIDAY WEEK DEAL***
For all jobs registered with us between 9am on Monday 25th November and 5pm on Friday 29th November we will reduce our temp and perm fees by 25%.
Yes, you read it right – a mind-blowing 25%!
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Never mind about £000s off a 70” 4K OLED TV, this is the deal you’ve all been waiting for.
But What Actually Is Black Friday?
It’s the informal name for the day after Thanksgiving in America (the fourth Thursday in November) and it traditionally signals the start of the Christmas shopping season.
It was first referred to in the much-loved magazine Factory Management & Maintenance back in the early 50s and it referred to the shameful practice of factory workers throwing sickies the day after Thanksgiving to sleep off hangovers and to squeeze in a four-day weekend.
As the phrase became entrenched in modern parlance in the capitalist 1980s, a reason for its existence emerged – that it was the first day of the year when retailers turned a profit, moving out of the red and into the black.
Did We Just Copy The Americans?
Well, yes and no. We copied the insane shopping frenzy but the roots of the phrase started with the police and NHS referring to the last Friday before Christmas when every employee in the country goes out on the razz and many of them end up in hospital after some proper end-of-term-style mayhem.
It really is nothing more than an exercise in marketing driven by corporate greed but like the lemmings we are, we fall for it bigger and better every year. In the last five years, we’ve spent an awful lot of money…
2014 – £810,000,000
2015 – £1,100,000,000
2016 – £1,200,000,000
2017 – £1,390,000,000
2018 – £1,490,000,000
2019 – £?
In true Brucie style, higher or lower for 2019? We’ll find out next week…
Play The Game Or Don’t Get Taken In?
That’s totally up to you but if you get it right there are undoubtedly some great bargains to be had, but also a word of warning – if you find a deal that appears too good to be true, it probably is.
There’s a certain unscrupulous nature (yes, really) about big retailers whereby they will often advertise phenomenal deals – Massive 65” 4K Super-Duper OLED TV, was £999, now £89 – but then when you try and buy it’s listed as ‘sold out – but you may be interested in this one’ type thing. Keep a beady eye out.
How About A Handy Liquid Guide To Black Friday Buying?
Sure, no worries.
Use Voucher Sites – most deals are listed online but before you sink a few and whip your credit card out, do a bit of research and you could end up with a cracking deal.
Don’t Get Taken In – a thousand pound TV for pennies is unlikely to come to fruition so don’t always assume what you’re looking at is the real thing. Also, it’s worth finding out what the original prices are for the goods you want so you can get a real idea of the savings you’re making.
Get The Apps – there are loads of free apps listing the available deals and most of them have live feeds of what’s around and where.
Make Good Choices – remember, in the next few months you’ve got the Christmas sales and then the January sales so if you don’t get what you want on Black Friday, chill out. Truth be told, there are good deals available all year round now so you’ll find what you want eventually.
There’s Also Cyber Monday – in the last few years, the major retailers have opted to save their best deals for Cyber Monday (December 2nd) so if you play it cool Trig, you may get an even better deal if you hold out.
Quality Over Quantity – the ‘smash and grab’ attitude of some doesn’t always work (in fact it rarely does) so find what you want and try and get it rather than splitting your time between all sorts of deals, at which point you’ll miss the boat. Stick to the plan.
Check Social – social feeds from the retailers you’re looking at will be stuffed with info and you may find good deals targeted to you or your geographical area.
Use A Credit Card – this is an important one. By using a credit card or PayPal (as opposed to a debit card), you are much better protected should you run into any problems.
Relax – since 2006 in America, there have been 12 deaths and hundreds of injuries on Black Friday from people literally climbing all over each other, and worse, to grab the best deals. Do you really want to end up inside because the red mist descended when you hit someone who got to the TV seven milliseconds before you did so you could save £40? Probably not.
Good luck!
Anyway, we digress. Here is…
***THE LIQUID BLACK FRIDAY WEEK DEAL (AGAIN)***
For all jobs registered with us between 9am on Monday 25th November and 5pm on Friday 29th November we will reduce our temp and perm fees by 25%.
Yes, you read it right – a mind-blowing 25%!
Catch you soon.
The Liquid Team
