Happy Thanksgiving - Happy Black Friday
Black Friday started out as an American tradition marking slashed prices immediately after Thanksgiving. It saw queues of avaricious shoppers trample one another to buy a bargain. This trend has now made its way across the Atlantic in recent years, fuelled inevitably by internet shopping. I was on holiday in the US over Thanksgiving in 2007 and remember going to a shopping mall on the Friday. The frenetic and frantic scenes were not forthcoming back then. How times have changed.
No doubt this will look very different in 2020. The pandemic has resulted in cyclical lockdowns or circuit breakers in the UK and many other countries. Black Friday this year will still be busy, but for warehouse staff and couriers, rather than retail assistants on the high street. I remember chatting to one delivery man a couple of years ago who worked for a large UK retailer. He told me that Black Friday was just as busy as the post-Christmas sales period and he dreaded this time of the year.
Black Friday - Cyber Monday
For many years I used to market about the risks associated with Black Friday from cyber criminals who were trying to trick unsuspecting users into giving up password or bank details with email scams. This time of the year is also prime time for nefarious activity, taking advantage of time limited offers. Clicking on a link in an unsolicited mail can easily lead to a malware infection or a phishing scam. Another popular trick from cyber criminals is the “Failed Delivery" email, playing on the anxiety of the recipient, prompting them to click on the link purporting to be a missing parcel report.
Crazy Times & Crazy Days
When I lived abroad, one large Finnish department store would have their own version of this in October called Hullut Päivät , translated as “Crazy days". The entire store was branded yellow and throngs of people were swarming around the store, with 2 announcers perched high on a temporary podium to draw your attention to time limited offers. It was quite an operation and you felt left out if you were not walking around the city with a yellow bag filled with goodies.
We hope it is a busy and Happy Black Friday for local businesses too. I have seen posts recently from people in my network about boycotting Amazon, in favour of purchasing products from their local high street. An admirable strategy as long as they can open and stay open.
What a Happy Job!
At HappyJobsNI, we have our own crazy days pricing strategy, only these last for more than 6 days. People are calling us the Vision of the Recruitment market – transparent and very cost-effective pricing.
Have you ever paid £2000 for a full head-hunting search service? Well now you can from
HappyJobsNI. This is our own Black Friday special, except this is every day of the week! So give another local business your business and trust HappyJobsNI.
Stay Happy this Thanksgiving and watch out for that SPAM (of the email variety).
