A bit like Halloween, Black Friday is also an American commercial tradition that has taken hold in (almost) all over the world in recent years, including Italy. The basic concept is simple: the day after Thanksgiving – which in 2016 means today, Friday 25 November – people flock to shops and shopping malls, where for 24 hours you can take advantage of mind-boggling discounts.
Compared to the past, e-commerce sites are now the protagonists during Black Friday. Above all Amazon and Alibaba, which have already sent millions of promotional emails and text messages to their users (in marketing language it is called "mail bombing"). But Black Friday has already done well for Yoox too, which rebounded yesterday in Piazza Affari (+1,38%).
As for our country, according to Confesercenti, 23% of small Italian exhibitors will participate in Black Friday. And it will do so in defiance of the law, because applying discounts 30 days before Christmas is prohibited (especially in Lombardy, Lazio and Emilia Romagna) and you risk hefty fines. 33%, on the other hand, would have liked to join, but then decided to postpone it until next year, perhaps hoping for less strict rules.
Not surprisingly, the merchants' association estimates that 62% of sales recorded during Italian Black Friday will be ensured by e-commerce sites and 25% by large-scale retail trade: for example Unieuro, which from today to Sunday offers 25% off all products.
Retail stores won't be left with more than a meager 8 percent. But with the GDP struggling to recover year after year, it is not science fiction to imagine that Black Friday or a similar form of pre-Christmas sales could be made official in Italy in the coming years. And without Thanksgiving, for the joy of the turkeys.
