In recent years some of the larger corporate UK businesses have started to emulate the US spending-spree that is Black Friday. Taking place on the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States (the fourth Thursday of November), the date marks the beginning of the commercialised Christmas shopping season, and has even on occasion lead to violence as shoppers fight over discounted goods.
Amazon has made particularly good mileage out of Black Friday, and the media are more than happy to give Amazon free publicity each year, running articles about Black Friday and Amazon’s role within it.
But the public is waking up to the bad business practices of Amazon, and a new boycott Amazon campaign this year has been gaining real momentum. UK campaigns to boycott Amazon are not new though – Ethical Consumer officially called for a boycott last year, and ARB member bookshop Housmans has been calling for a boycott and documenting the reasons not shop with them for several years: check out the reasons not shop with them by clicking here: housmans.com/boycottamazon.php
This year the Alliance of Radical Booksellers is asking you to help spread the world about the alternatives to Amazon and support the alternative by way of your local radical bookshops. Please help by:
- Sharing the Black & Red Friday Image
- Sharing this post
- Subvert the #BlackFriday hashtag with anti-Amazon and pro-ARB messages
- Show support by using the #BlackAndRedFriday hashtag
- Please buy your books from your local ARB bookshop
Let’s put the red into Black Friday!
