Halloween has gone and Romanians are now gearing up for another American holiday: Black Friday.
The American deals day which falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving has firmly cemented itself in Romanian calendar, with the pre-Christmas sale being one of the best times to buy an early gift as online retailers and high street stores slash their prices.
With retailers already advertising deals, PayU online payment platform estimates that Romanians will spend 1.2 billion lei (252 million euros) in this year’s Black Friday campaigns, one-fifth more than last year.
It estimates that online transactions on Black Friday will be almost one third of the total transactions, or 360 million leu (75.7 million euros), 25% more than in 2018.
The average value of the shopping basket online willl dip by 4% from last year to 650 lei or 137 euros.
.PayU said IT&C, Information Technology and Communications, remains the favorite category of purchase, followed by fashion, home and decoration, tourism and beauty.
It is the ninth edition of Black Friday held in Romania and Frames consulting company says the market has matured. Although it is an American holiday, it has spread to various countries around the world such as South Africa, Canada, Britain and Mexico.
Black Friday is the first Friday after Thanksgiving, which on this year falls on Nov. 29, but rather than restrict itself to one day, the event now goes on much longer, with early deals starting in November.
Major retailers will start the sale on Nov. 15 and continue through the month.
It was originally called Black Friday because the volume of shoppers created traffic accidents and sometimes even violence. In the 1950s, people began calling in sick the day after Thanksgiving to give themselves a four-day weekend.
The day after Thanksgiving has been regarded as the beginning of America’s Christmas shopping season since 1952, although the term ‘Black Friday’ didn’t become widely used until more recent decades. It’s been the busiest shopping day of the year in the U.S. since 2005.
