Black Friday 2015 UK date: Why the crazy discount and deal day chaos is coming early this year (and will last longer)
Be prepared for Black Friday to come early this year.
There's a month to go until the day which brought us frenzied scenes of bargain shoppers, but one company believes retailers will begin their discounting even earlier than 27 November when it falls.
"Retailers are likely to discount earlier than Black Friday but spread the offers over a longer period of time to try and avoid the cataclysmic spike that occurred last year," warned Tim Robinson, boss of parcel delivery and collection firm Doddle.
Even though Cyber Monday, the sales bonanza of Black Friday was in fact the biggest ever single shopping day of 2015 online.
It's "not an unreasonable expectation" said Shorecap analyst Clive Black. "If you can’t get products to people, you’ve failed. We’ll see a lot of change to how it's done compared to the last few years. I think we are seeing retailers learning from it year-on-year."
He suggests there may also be changes to the way retailers approach the rest of Black Friday, from product and pricing to logistics since many retailers, such as John Lewis and Home Retail Group and have been left counting the cost of last years Black Friday heavy discounting.
"There's an evolution of Black Friday concept so its more profitable for retailers," he said.
However, with discounts spread out, Doddle is still planning for a spike in parcel volumes of as much as 600 per cent. “Everyone has been prepping for the mega-online shopping event, Black Friday, with more tech and more muscle," said Robinson.