Black Friday: Social media reflects shopping chaos

Staff tried to keep order as customers competed over items including televisions

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As thousands of shoppers compete for Black Friday offers, social media has been reflecting the chaos seen across England.

In Asda, Wembley, Kadhim Shubber from the Financial Times tweeted a video of a woman who ended up on the floor as shoppers competed for a television.

At the same supermarket, the BBC's Zoe Conway tweeted a picture of a woman on her knees with the words: "Customers knocked to the ground in the rush at Asda Wembley #BlackFriday."


Customers were "knocked to the ground" during the chaos

One woman ended up on the floor in Asda Wembley as shoppers competed for a television

Police have been called to more than 10 supermarkets following crowd surges.

A Tesco in Trafford, Greater Manchester, closed shortly after footage was filmed of disruption as people queued.

It was not just the police who were called to deal with shoppers, the North West Ambulance Service tweeted: "Called out to Chester Road, Stretford this morning. Female with head injury after being hit with a television. Stay safe!."

Sgt Paul Marshall, from the Metropolitan Police, reminded shoppers onTwitter they could be arrested: "Even on #BlackFriday shoving people to the floor so you can get £20 off a Coffee Maker is still an assault."

At other retailers, a calmer scene of lengthy queues of bargain hunters was seen, with Sarah Butler tweeting that a "very British queue" was seen at one Asda store.

Shoppers wait for one Asda supermarket to open
Shoppers are admitted by a security guard as they queue outside a branch of Foot Locker on Oxford Street, London

Stock flew off the shelves with Bryan Roberts tweeting that a "massive pile" of televisions had been taken from an aisle within six minutes in one supermarket.

But, there was some criticism on social media of those trying to grab a bargain. Bradley Clarke tweeted: "I've woken up to Black Friday carnage. What's actually wrong with people? People have no shame. #smh #BlackFriday #sales"

While Stu tweeted: "Having read more & more about the chaos of this #BlackFriday I'm more & more convinced it shld be banned. Disgusting scenes. #NotBritish"

The empty area where a "massive pile" of televisions once stood, according to one customer

Despite the chaos some happy shoppers tweeted they had managed to take home a bargain.

Kinia, from Wallasey, tweeted: "I wouldn't buy something I don't need on #BlackFriday but I got a 200ml perfume for £40 instead of £75! Bargain #loosewomen @loosewomen".

Other shoppers had managed to avoid the chaos, Grace Billinghamtweeted: "Don't know where people have been shopping but it's been bliss for me! Got myself a bargain or 2 with no fights or ques 👍 #BlackFriday"

While others decided to avoid the chaos and buy online, such as Paul Ferguson who tweeted: "Not even gotten out of bed yet and I've already bought an iPad... #BlackFriday".

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Amazon answers 'Double 11' with Black Friday

Screenshot shows Amazon's "Black Friday" shopping carnival will kick off for the first time in China from 9 am on Friday. [Photo/amazon.cn]

Amazon plans to bring this year's "Black Friday" shopping spree to China, a move seen as escalating the competition with Alibaba in the world's biggest e-commerce market.

The western shopping carnival will kick off for the first time in China from 9 am on Friday, said Amazon on its website, when online shoppers can search for best deals the first day after Thanksgiving and shop for Christmas.

"Black Friday" versus "Double 11"

There are about 800,000 items on Amazon China's dedicated website for overseas shopping, with categories ranging from garment, shoes, makeup to health care and sports. Delivery takes as little as three days to two weeks on average, according to the website.

Amazon China will offer up to 70 percent off on about 35,000 products from 9 am to 4 pm on Friday, 6,000 of which will be exclusive, reported Chinese financial media Caixin quoting the company's information. The campaign in China will last throughout Saturday, which will be Friday in the US, when some of the products will be sold at half price.

Caixin added that with a delivery system covering 3,000 cities in China, Amazon aims at creating "a festival for overseas online shopping" and extending its international strategy.

Amazon launched the Chinese site on Nov 11, a day also known as "Double 11" or "Single's Day" in China and celebrated by young people shopping online.

Alibaba created the Chinese version of the shopping festival in 2009 and has made it a tradition since then. This year was the first time that the e-commerce behemoth launched the campaign on both its domestic and overseas platforms. Online sales on Alibaba's Tmall.com, Taobao.com and its overseas outlets, such as AliExpress, topped 57.1 billion yuan ($9.34 billion) on Nov 11.

Jockey for cross-border e-commerce

While Amazon is working on its Chinese site to attract Chinese shoppers into the "Black Friday" campaign, Alibaba's payment arm Alipay is teaming up with a group of high-end retailers in the US preparing for the same promotion.

Merchants participating in the first Black Friday promotion include Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's, Macy's, iHerb, Gilt, Ashford, Ann Taylor, American Apparel and Aeropostale.

"Alipay is delighted to partner with Borderfree and Shoprunner to help leading US retailers introduce Black Friday to China and reach out to eager new customers through well-managed localized promotions, direct marketing and social media campaigns," said Rebecca Lui, director of marketing and public relations for Alipay US.

According to Bloomberg, Alibaba is open to working with eBay's Paypal and Apple's payment system to expand payment options and keeps exploring overseas market.

Alipay also announced its plan to set up a subsidiary company in Sydney and support cross-border e-commerce between China and Australia on Tuesday.

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Social media fuels growing push to boycott Black Friday following grand jury decision

Nationwide calls to boycott Black Friday and for consumers to "protest with you money" are growing following the grand jury's decision not to indict Darren Wilsonin the shooting death of Michael Brown.

Several Facebook pages have emergedcalling for shoppers to push for change byboycotting Black Friday shopping. Most have been pushing for the boycott since early this fall, but efforts to get consumers to quit spending on the day in protest have intensified since Monday.

Users on social media are using the hashtags #BoycottBlackFriday, #BlackoutBlackFriday, #NotOneDime, #BrownFriday, #HandsUpDontSpend and #NoJusticeNoProfit to spread the message.

A group called Blackout for Human Rights posted a Youtube video on Nov. 7 which shows a montage of police brutality accompanied by Andy William's "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year." The end of the video calls for viewers to "blackout" Black Friday and not shop on that day. "Help stop police brutality by $peaking a language everyone understands," the video continues.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  The group's website says it is "a network of concerned citizens who commit their energy and resources to immediately address the staggering level of human rights violations against fellow Americans throughout the United States. We have witnessed enough. We mourn the loss of men like Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Ezell Ford, John Crawford and Michael Brown, who met their deaths at the hands of police officers."

The group's website also says Blackout Black Friday is the group's first nationwide day of action and retail boycott and that it will be organizing grassroots events across the country for people to come out and show solidarity with the movement.

On the Ferguson National Response Network webpage, where grassroots organizers have been putting together protests across the country following the grand jury decision, there is also a call for people to plan Blackout Black Friday protests in the form of a local mall demonstration. The website is calling for submissions of protests, pointing to the October protest that took place at Plaza Frontenac as an example of what a mall protest could look like.

Recent Nielsen data suggests that African Americans have a buying power of $1.1 trillion.

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Macy's Black Friday Marketing Now Includes Facebook Video Ads  Store looks to reach people who missed parade 

Macy's jumps into Facebook video advertising for Thanksgiving.

Macy's plans to run video ads on Facebook to round out its extensive Thanksgiving and Black Friday marketing. It already rules the holiday on live TV with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, featuring oversized iconic balloons making their way through midtown Manhattan, but now the retailer is looking to reach social media users with Facebook’s premium video ads.

The videos will feature SpongeBob SquarePants, also a star of the parade, and start running on Thanksgiving evening. 

Macy's head of digital marketing, Jennifer Kasper, told Reuters that she hopes the Facebook ads will keep the brand "top of mind" for people who might miss the parade on TV.

Fashion brand Kate Spade New York also is among the advertisers jumping into video on Facebook, which began offering the format widely this year. The fashion design house told Reuters it has reached more than 6.7 million people since it launched Facebook video commercials earlier this month.

Facebook has reported that video content on the site is exploding—more than a hundred million videos are uploaded a month.

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Pin Down Your Social Media Strategy This Black Friday (Infographic)

For a traffic boost to you e-commerce site, look to Pinterest.

Here's a really good reason to pay attention to Pinterest this holiday season: The visual social network drives a whopping 23 percent of referral traffic to e-commerce sites, according to Curalate, a social media marketing platform.

In the month of November, Curalate collected more than 180,000 "pins" associated with the Top 100 brands in the 2014 Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide. It found that 82 percent of product images were shared organically from brands’ websites. Yet some retailers are still missing out. Twenty-eight percent of brands don't have Pinterest buttons on their product pages, and 44 percent don't have "Pin It" buttons on their home pages, according to the analysis.

For more on the value of using Pinterest this holiday season, check out the infographic below.

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