Black Friday makes its Spanish bow

Shoppers in Spain have been treated to the spectacle of Black Friday this year

Spain’s admirable ability to hold on to its own traditions and customs in the face of growing internationalisation and commercialisation took a sharp-elbowed battering this week as Spanish stores embraced the shopping phenomenon of Black Friday…

Imported from the US via the UK, Black Friday is the name given to the day after Thanksgiving: a day when stores slash their prices to capitalise on the pre-Christmas goodwill of the season, creating a 24-hour (almost) free-for-all in which Americans would burn off the turkified excesses of the day before in shopping aisles across the country.

So far, so American. But last year retailers in the UK got in on the act, too, while this year’s spectacle got a little out of hand in supermarkets up and down the land.

In Spain, the affair was altogether a little more civilised and low-key. Then again, that was the case in the UK last year when Black Friday first became a ‘thing’.  And although Spanish department store El Corte Inglés inaugurated its Black Friday campaign last year, very few others followed suit.

This year, however, electronics chain Worten also participated, slashing prices across 3,500 products on Black Friday and into the weekend, while Media Markt, Carrefour, Decathlon and Toys R Us also ran their own sales campaigns.

Spain’s late-coming to the Black Friday party can be explained by the law. It would have been legally impossible to hold such a sale before 2012, when strict laws governed when official sales could be held. The loosening of those laws – introduced as part of the government’s reform to kickstart Spain’s economy – has had a great effect on the Spanish high street.

This year, Spaniards are expected to be hit with the festive bug in a bigger way than recent years. Figures from TNS and eBay suggest that the average Spaniard will spend €209 per head on gifts this year. Brits, on the other hand, will shell out an average €282 on Christmas gifts.

In anticipation of the festive season, El Corte Inglés has revealed that it is to hire 2,200 extra staff over December and January – the first time it has done so for four years. Ikea, Carrefour and a number of other multinational retailers are expected to do likewise.