Amazon has revealed plans to extend its Black Friday deals across 12 days starting from November 14.
Last year the retailer sold an estimated 86 items a second over the Black Friday weekend, breaking its previous record and selling over 7.4 million items total.
Since Amazon introduced Black Friday to the UK in 2010, the fourth Friday of November has been growing in the UK and has quickly become the one of the most important days of the year for retailers.
The ecommerce behemoth promised to double its offers this year, but shows a growing trend seeing retailers attempt to spread out shopper spending to avoid the manic scenes which have become synonymous with the event.
READ MORE: Can retailers do badly out of Black Friday?
This shopper aggression and in-store chaos led to police being called to Asda and Tesco during 2013‘s and 2014‘s Black Friday sales days.
Amazon has reportedly more than doubled its staff for the period to help alleviate the pressure, bringing in more the 20,000 temporary workers.
“In response to positive customer feedback for Black Friday deals, we are introducing the Black Friday Sale – 12 days of fantastic deals on must-have gifts and products, saving our customers millions of pounds,” Amazon UK country manager Doug Gurr said.
READ MORE: Big Interview: Amee Chande UK Managing Director of Alibaba
We‘re also thrilled to have over 1000 small businesses featuring in our Black Friday sale, broadening the selection for our customers and enabling those businesses to boost their sales in the run-up to Christmas.”
Black Friday is not the only shopping event to transform the retail landscape for a day, and in fact it is not even the biggest.
“Alibaba‘s Singles Day is today (November 11) and is expected to see a £16 billion spend.
Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette’s free daily email newsletter
