I’m so relieved I’ve not been drawn into what has now firmly established itself as the Black Friday fracas – either by taking part in shopping scrums or experiencing the frustration of website crashes!

I can understand those trying to bag a bargain online, but what is it with people in the stores? Have they no dignity? I chuckled at an image of a woman spreadeagled over a flatscreen TV, desperately trying to keep hold of it as a rival shopper did her best to drag it away, but on reading that shop staff have been attacked and several are sporting black eyes and other injuries, and that another shopper has been hurt by a falling TV, I felt sad. What have we become?

Some customs we import from the US are worth taking on board, but others, such as over-the-top high school proms, supersized fast foods and of course Black Friday – well – I wish we’d never heard of them.

And I have to ask: if someone’s buying a kitchen appliance or the like at a fraction of its normal price today, how likely are they to be spending out again on similar items at a more reasonable price in the run up to Christmas? Isn’t this just a case of bringing the Christmas shopping period forward and cramming it into one 24hr period, during which websites crash, staff are overwhelmed and injured and many unlucky shoppers will be left with – at the very least – a bad taste in their mouths, but perhaps relieved that they haven’t lost teeth?

I believe shops are doing themselves a disservice by becoming involved, as the usual loss leaders to lure customers in, aren’t going to work in this kind of scenario, are they – well, not unless it’s an online shop? But of course, how can one store not become involved when its competitors are?

I can envisage the headlines… “Stores say final shopping days before Christmas are ‘unusually quiet’,” or “January sales brought forward due to lack of sales”.

I think we should ban Black Friday and I daresay all the delivery drivers will be feeling the same by this time next week.

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Yours,

Jan Hobbs