Black Friday is an American import that has caught on in Europe and is embraced by retailers and shoppers as an opening trumpet blast for the start of the holiday shopping season.
Black Friday is different in different ways. There are three snapshots of the state of Black Friday in Europe.
Clara Pascual was going to put a poster on the front door of her toy store in central Madrid to advertise a Black Friday sale.
She expected most of her clientele to show up Friday and Saturday to take advantage of the 10 percent discount on toys purchased during her Black Friday event, so she was not concerned about the store being empty.
Ms. Pascual said that more people have been coming in to check out the Black Friday special offer than to actually buy something.
The Spanish tradition is that children get their presents on January 6th, which is when Black Friday is held.
We have had to adapt to the fact that more Spanish families are giving at Christmas than for the kings so that their children can enjoy their toys during a longer holiday spell, Ms. Pascual said.
She said that Black Friday is a cultural import that has nothing to do with our own traditions and everything to do with globalization.
The chief executive of XChannel, a marketing company that represents a dozen toy brands in Spain and Italy, said he expected their sales to triple this Black Friday compared with last year.
He said that most of the companies are placing a big bet on Black Friday to sell as much as possible because they already know that they will have delivery troubles during the Christmas time.
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The Dreoni toy store in Florence, Italy, has a holiday hat.
The Dreoni toy store in Florence, Italy, has been a landmark for 98 years, but it didn't last that long without responding to new trends.
Italians started expecting big sales a few years ago on Black Friday, said a co-owner of the store and a member of the third generation to run it.
She said that they had to adapt. We embraced the Black Friday like we did with Halloween.
The words suggested a collapse in the stock market. The English term "Black Friday" is a mark of American roots.
The ceiling of Dreoni is painted to look like a blue sky with puffy white clouds. A large puppet theater shows a wooden puppet named "Pinocchio" who dreams of becoming a real boy. Carlo was born near the store where the tale of Pinocchio was written.
Ms. Dreoni and her sister decided a decade ago that their business needed a website and now have an online store with 8,000 toys on their shelves. Ms. Dreoni said that in-person sales give more satisfaction.
She said that online sales are cold. People still like to touch toys and have an expert explain them. It is not like buying a pan or a pot.
The surge in online purchases at this time of the year makes life difficult for smaller delivery companies.
Marco Magli, owner of the ADL SPA Corriere Espresso in Bologna, said that large national and international delivery companies have been swamped with online orders. He said that they need to figure out who can help them deliver their goods in Milan or outside of the city. The market is very saturated.
In the last couple of years, volumes of deliveries started going up in November, whereas before it was only in December, according to a union leader at the company.
He said it was because of the Black Friday week.
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The Christmas market is closed in Germany.
The number of new coronavirus cases in Germany is making many Germans feel less optimistic about the holiday season.
Art and Play, a store that sells German-made wooden toys and games, has seen a boost in business because of the holiday markets being closed.
The store is open and the customers are happy about it.
He said that only 50 people are allowed at a time in the downtown store. Sales are being hampered by limited supplies. Mr. Bartsch said that wooden toys are popular this year. All of the wholesalers are buying them.
The effects of the previous lockdowns are still felt by the supplies of locally-sourced toys.
He said that they were forced to close at the height of the Pandemic and only recently got back to full production. They are backed up for at least nine months.
The German retail association H.D.E. said this week that shipping delays could cause last-minute gifts to be harder to find during Black Friday promotions.
The retail association predicted a sales increase of 2% for the last two months of the year based on consumer sentiment. The country has seen a record number of new infections in the past two weeks, forcing authorities to close restaurants, bars and Christmas markets in the eastern and southern states.
The last three months of the year account for 70 percent of the business at Kunst und Spiel, according to Mr. Bartsch. He is hoping that he will be able to stay open even if his staff has the added job of making sure that shoppers are vaccine- and masked-free.
He said he would be happy if sales remained the same.
