Black Friday, what is it? And how to avoid the crush, get better gifts and even make some money to offset the cost! Now that is a bargain!

1. Black Friday
Today, November 28th 2014 is Black Friday. If you are American you'll know all about Black
Friday, whilst here in Britain, Black Friday is just catching on. For those not in the know, Black
Friday is the Friday following Thanksgiving, which is the fourth Thursday in November.
Black Friday is traditionally America's busiest shopping day, I guess with Thanksgiving out of the
way everyone's thoughts turn to Christmas. Marketer's who recognised the phenomenon started
running promotions, and sales and discounts to try and make sure they got the biggest possible
share, in this biggest of all possible retail cakes.
The same is now happening in the UK and I suspect in other markets too. Already the BBC has
reported problems at major British stores as customers fight to get their hands on the best bargains.
“Pushing someone to the floor to get the last coffee maker is assault” said one English policeman
called out to a well known supermarket.
So why are so many people cramming themselves into overcrowded stores when internet shopping
and home delivery are so big these days? Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favour of, or advocating
the death of the High Street, but battling the crowds is a wearying, if not soul destroying experience,
and finding what you want isn't that easy either.
Sitting at home in front of a computer isn't everyone's idea of fun and it's not particularly healthy in
terms of fresh air and exercise, but it does give access to a very wide range of products very
quickly, and you can always go out for a walk afterwards, maybe in the countryside with the dog if
you have one. Furthermore the internet opens up to you the possibility of finding things not readily
available on the high street.
There are many small retailers who sell interesting things, but most of them sell online as well as
from their shops, indeed if they didn't many would fall by the wayside and only the big stores would
survive. Certainly here in Britain our town centres are all getting to look the same which I think is a
great shame, our towns used to have their own individual characters, but now they're all dominated
by the same big retailers.
Internet shopping allows you to support small retailers too, if they're internet savvy, but it also helps
you to find things you just won't find elsewhere. You can have things made for example and if you
do make nice things that aren't simply attractive to you, then you can sell them to other people with
similar interests as well.
As a widely travelled, enthusiastic photographer I've been using a company called zazzle to make
products from my pictures. There are obvious things like t-shirts, mousemats, canvas prints and
phone cases, but zazzle offers much, much more. From one photograph I can easily make one
hundred different products. I now have about seventy themed stores on zazzle such as airplanestore
for aviation enthusiasts, classicautostore for petrol heads, motorbikestore for bikers and so on.
I have over 150,000 products on sale on line, so Black Friday for me is about selling. So why am I
sitting here writing an article? Well, zazzle takes care of all the manufacturing and fulfilment, all I
do is upload the pictures and edit them to suit the products. I can do that when and where I like, so
if I want to travel, go sailing, or motorcycling I can.
I may be doing myself a disservice telling you about this, because you may go into competition with
me, but you may also like some of the things I've made, so what the heck! If you want to see a list
of most of my stores you'll find them on my page at http://about.me/malcolmsnook and if you want

2. to create your own stores but don't like following online instructions I've made a video tutorial at
http://malcolmsnook.tradebit.com/files
Black Friday then; shop from home to beat the crush, shop from home to obtain rare and unusual
gifts tailored to the interests of your friends and loved ones and then sell a little too so you offset the
cost. Happy Black Friday and happy Christmas to you all!