This is a first for me. This morning I found two Black Friday ads in my inbox from Europe. One was from a glassblower in Venice and the other from the Paradors in Spain. Have others been receiving these? It really surprised me, especially since I ignore Black Friday here in the USA.

I had one this morning from Avis in the UK. I, too, thought it surprising.

I've received lots that are US based, although I'm here in the UK. I'd guess that if you've got one of the popular email addresses, hotmail, gmail etc. you can get allsorts.

There seems to have been some sort of general agreement by retailers in the UK that we need another set of sales to be promoted under this heading. TV advertising has been full of it this week, but since I'm not in the market for the kind of bargains they claim to be offering, I've no idea whether it's having any great effect or not.

Our local 24 hour news channel had a piece about Black Friday in London this am. Showed two guys fighting over a huge TV in a big box store. It said many London retailers were having 2nd thoughts about Black Friday super sales since they don;t want to deal with all of the chaos.

Not sure if they do the same model as in the US - stores opening at 6 am, staying open until midnight and having door buster specials with a limited number of computers or TVs at about 1/3 of the regular price. It just doesn't seem to fit the London retail model.

Yet another cultural cross over, luckily even we Brits realise that these special days only reduce profits and stress people. Luckily most people now shop on line so companies that follow this strategy just lose more money.

To make things worse the American stock markets seemed to stop yesterday (lazy Bs) and today seem very quiet.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving - so everything closed. Today is only a part day for the the market.

And not sure the Black Friday is even valid. Is it also true for London stores that they are in the red for the year until Black Friday and have to make all of their profits for the year from that Friday to Dec 31?

Not sure NYT, black friday only really arrived last year. Most profit is normally made in the run up to Christmas, not a month before.

Today is "Black Friday" here in Portugal as well. Which is kind of interesting, as Friday isn't even Friday, it's Sexta-Feira

>>Our local 24 hour news channel had a piece about Black Friday in London this am. Showed two guys fighting over a huge TV in a big box store. It said many London retailers were having 2nd thoughts about Black Friday super sales since they don;t want to deal with all of the chaos.<<

Funny, TV news here was saying tonight most retailers were disappointed at the response. Apparently there were a few such scenes for some discounted TVs last year (that's what you would have seen on your morning news, after all), but not this year. Apparently it was all started by ASDA last year (the local Walmart subsidiary) but even they admit it wasn't much of a success.

Bearing in mind we already had the onslaught of Christmas advertising upon us, it did seem a rather lame idea.

Last night I was wandering around Exeter [medium sized city in the south-west of the UK with a large shopping centre] and there were lots of "Black Friday" deals going, and some ordinary "sales" which you never used to see in the run-up to Christmas, suggesting that despite the Christmas Market and its being late night shopping, sales are slow.

Also lots of "black Friday" internet "deals" [sic] even/including on new cars.

Great if there's something you actually want/need, but otherwise not for me, and it would seem, not for lots of other people either.

i have been getting free shipping for Marks and Spencer all day on Facebook.

Well in the US department stores have sales all the time - literally - and special sales in the 5 or 6 weeks before Christmas. Black Friday is not just sales but a limited number of items at outrageously cheap prices - to generate the mobs of buyers the stores are looking for - trusting while there they will buy a lot of other things in their frenzy.

I did get one from Auto Europe but they're a US company. So the Black Friday Brawl has gone global, you say?

We'll need to send turkeys.

M&S sent me a Black Friday email this morning.

In Canada we never had Black Friday until about 3-4 years ago and it started very slowly. This year it's huge...if you're a retailer in Canada now without BF deals you are dead in the water.

The big Black Friday headlines here are that everyone stayed at home!

That said, there seems to have been a lot of on-line spending. Why that should be limited to one mad day at the end of November I have no idea.

>>Why that should be limited to one mad day at the end of November I have no idea.<<

Artificial sense of excitement: "Look, it's 90% off!" without considering whether a set of hand-painted ming-mongs are the slightest use to you. Or that's what they hope. I still haven't got my head round the idea that apparently some people buy food without knowing when or whether it might get eaten - they may well be right.

A friend is in Madrid and sent me a photo of the Black Fridays sales there. Ridiculous .
In Australia Black Friday was 13 Jan 1939 when 71 people died in bushfires in Victoria and 2 million hectares burnt .

It's a recent thing. I'm usually in London that time of year, and only noticed it last year. This year more stores were joining in. The main sales are still the day after Christmas. It's a bit silly, because there's no reason for 'Black Friday', but 20% off at Selfridges is always nice, no matter how they call it. It was mainly very busy on the Saturday.