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Black Friday in Corfu on 24 November

Black Friday
10 Nov 2017 / 10:27

For the second year running, the business practice that has been successfully adopted in several countries will make its appearance in Greece.

CORFU. In Corfu, as in 2016, there will be bargains on offer at shops participating in Black Friday. However, last year only a limited number of small-to-medium sized retailers took part and several of these merely paying lip-service. As some traders said, “What with one thing and another, we seem to be in a sales period all year round.” Just to remind ourselves, we are already in the middle of Autumn Sales, which will continue until 15 November.

Having said that, the board of the Corfu Traders Association is meeting on Monday to decide on what it will propose to Corfu traders – a proposal that is only advisory, nonetheless.

In Thessaloniki, the local Traders Association has already officially announced the date of Black Friday. “Black Friday is a worldwide ‘business celebration’ with large discounts available in shops and the Thessaloniki Traders Association would like to encourage small-to-medium sized retailers to take part in this ‘celebration’ and not to leave it only to the large multi-nationals.” More specifically, the Association states that discounts can be up to 50% and that the price before and after the discount must be clearly displayed.

The term ‘Black Friday’ has its roots in the 1960s and marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping period in the USA. At the beginning of the 60s, account books were handwritten and the shops used two colours of ink to enter the data. The days with negative sales figures were written in red and those with positive sales figures in black. The last Friday in November became established as the first day in the Christmas shopping period and there was a significant increase in sales – hence, Black Friday.

The tradition has spread to several European countries over the last few years, including UK, Germany, France, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Austria, Finland and Poland and each year an increasing number of retailers take part.