Last year’s Black Friday “damaged Christmas gift spending and it took sales away from full-priced sales over the Christmas period”, said Richard Perks, director of retail research at Mintel.
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But now the retailer now says its customers are not interested in flash sales on big-ticket, non-essential items at Christmas.
Last year, by mid-afternoon, Asda said it had rung up 2m sales from 8am, making it the busiest single trading day of the year up to that date.
“In Swansea previous year, hundreds flocked to Asda, to pick up bargains such as a 40” Polaroid television for £139 and a Little Tikes Roll and Play activity table for £20.
The retailer says it will instead be investing £26m in savings across the festive period. I don’t think we can put the genie back in the bottle but do we need to stoke that fire anymore?
Just last month, John Lewis commercial director Paula Nickolds confirmed that the department store would be part of Black Friday again this year, despite reservations voiced by managing director Andy Street that it hit profitability and caused havoc on the high street.
Ms Nickolds said: “John Lewis has no choice”.
“We are absolutely committed to our Never Knowingly Undersold pledge and this means we are part of this event”.
For 2015, Black Friday will take place worldwide on 27 November, the day after the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving.
“But Asda were clearly sensitive to the embarrassing scenes a year ago of people fighting over cheap TV sets in their supermarkets and wanted to avoid any risk of reputational damage”, he said.
According to Asda, customer feedback revealed that shoppers said they would prefer deals on products that impacted their everyday lives, including food and drink for Christmas and household basics.
“It’s quite a courageous move”.
He added that there had been evidence to suggest that interest has been waning in the United States as well.
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Sophie McCarthy, retail analyst at Conlumino, said: ‘The real focus for grocers right now is stabilising their balance sheet, so Black Friday won’t help them at all with this’.
