Keep Calm and Ignore 'Black Friday': there is an alternative

Last year's coverage

Following the nasty, and I think contrived 'consumer frenzy' at Wembley ASDA last year LINK the company has decided not to participate in Black Friday this year.

Tradecraft is offfering an alternative this year folloowing new survey results that show more than half the UK is negatively affected by shopping fever in the run-up to Christmas.

They have launched the 'Just Friday' initiative:

More than half of people surveyed (54%) said they experience negative emotions when shopping in the run-up to Christmas – feeling stressed, anxious, ill, argumentative and violent.

As major retailers turn their backs on Black Friday, Traidcraft’s ‘Just Friday’ initiative offers shoppers an alternative to the riotous scenes played out in stores in recent years. The campaign encourages people to take a moment to stop, breathe, and buy their gifts mindfully and ethically. By buying from ethical organisations, consumers shopping on Black Friday can use their spending power to help people in developing countries across the world.

The recent survey, conducted on behalf of Traidcraft, also showed how almost half of all consumers (43%) would like to see an end to Black Friday all together, with four in 10 planning to shop online to avoid the chaos.

Larry Bush, Traidcraft’s marketing director, says:

With some of the biggest UK retailers scaling back their involvement in this year’s Black Friday sales, it’s obvious that consumers are growing tired of this materialistic ‘consumption culture’, which is why we’re running our Just Friday campaign again this year.

Imagine if just 1% of the £1bn that retail analysts predict will be spent on Black Friday was spent with ethical, fair trade organisations like Traidcraft and People Tree? Even this small percentage could help us improve the lives of tens of thousands of people across the developing world and make a huge difference to someone’s life – and you’ll be buying a beautifully handmade, unique gift for family and friends.

So on Black Friday, one of the most chaotic days on the shopping calendar, we’re offering an alternative with ‘Just Friday’, and asking people to take a few moments and think about their buying choices.

Safia Minney MBE, Founder & CEO of People Tree says:

Mindless consumption that makes Christmas shoppers feel uncomfortable, especially at the cost of workers and the planet, has to stop. We can create change, a different way of doing business and buy Fair Trade, ethically and sustainably this Just Friday.

Shoppers can enjoy free shipping on all orders placed on www.traidcraftshop.co.uk this Just Friday, with gifts for everyone handmade by artisans across the globe.

Is retail really the answer to Brent's economic development?

London Designer Outlet, Christmas Eve, 11.30am

If you wanted a little bit of peace and quiet away from the last minute Christmas shopping crowds then Wembley's London Designer Outlet (the LDO) was the place to be this morning. I popped in to see how things were going after visiting Wembley Library - the library was more crowded!

Of course the LDO has only just opened (but so has the library) and the weather forecast was poor (but that affects library users too). The library is for local people while the LDO is intended to attract crowds from within the M25 so transport disruption affects the latter more.

Despite this one would have expected more shoppers. The store doing the briskest trade was the Tesco Local just outside the LDO on Wembley Hill Road. There is still time for things to pick up and perhaps the post-Christmas sales will help, although of course products are heavily discounted anyway.  However there are vital questions to be raised.

I had a sharp little exchange with Cllr Muhammed Butt, leader of Brent Council, earlier this week when I criticised his frequent tweets urging people to shop at the LDO - I suggested he had becomes its PR mouthpiece. He retorted that it provided jobs for local people and Cllr Pavey flew to his support accusing me of having no sense of fun and praising the LDO as a great addition to the local economy. The initimable tweeter PukkahPubjabi joined in, asking how many of the jobs were on zero hours contracts and the London Living Wage.

I responded: 

We have different views on what constitutes a viable, sustainable local economy. Reliance on retail is not the answer.

And that perhaps sums up the differences between me and Brent Labour on this. At the beginning of the Quintain regeneration I suggested that an emphasis on retail in a period of recession and debt was not a good idea and that the kind of jobs that would result were not of sufficient quality for our young people. Brent Greens put forward a suggestion for a Green Enterprise zone in the regenerated area, offering incentives for green industries to be set up, contributing to combating climate change and with pay-offs for residents in terms of energy saving technologies and adaptations.  There could be links with local colleges for training and apprenticeship schemes. The result would be skilled jobs of high social value contributing to the wider economy.

This is of course based on clear differences in our assumptions about future economic development. In the face of diminishing natural resources and the need to cut back on carbon emissions as climate change accelerates. Greens are looking for more sustainable economic models not linked to every increasing consumption and debt.  Socially useful production geared to needs not wants. A more equal society with less division between the rich and the poor.

Labour is still signed up to the neoliberal model with their challenge to capitalism little more than trying to give it a human face. They do not question the strategy of expanding the economy through consumption and borrowing. Despite the 2008 crisis they have little to say about the reform of banks or the City of London, reducing the ratio between the lowest and highest paid in corporations, or ending the privatisation of the public sector. On a local level Muhammed Butt doesn't recognise the contradictions of pushing discounted designer shopping to a population suffering income decline and thus easy prey for the loan sharks he is pledged to control.

That difference is what makes me an eco-socialist within the Green Party.

When we submitted our views on Quintain's and Brent Council's retail vision for the Wembley Park regeneration we described it as high risk but at the time it did include social provision such as family housing, health centre swimming pool and a new primary school. These remain to be built and would surely be of more benefit to Brent residents than retail units offering 60% off kitchenware!

The Impossible Hamster

Huge increases in consumption, fueled by huge increases in debt, are behind much of the current economic crisis. Many politicans and economists believe that the economy has to keep growing without limit: industry, finance and commerce need a constantly expanding market in order to make profits. Everything is monetised (has a money value) and our 'wants' replace our needs. It doesn't make us happy and meanwhile millions don't have their basic needs met.



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