FRANCESCO VOLPE – In the USA, the first Friday after the Thanksgiving Day it’s called “Black Friday”, and despite not being considered a conventional holiday, it marks the traditional opening of the holiday’s shopping season. 
From one coast to another, the “battle cry”of thousand people is only one: “get in line” and wait for the opening of the stores offering special offers just for one day.
The “Black Friday” is a very peculiar day: how sales will go on this day help to understand the expenses trend and, above all, will help to understand how much money people could spend during the next holidays.
That is the reason why stock market analysts around the world look at this day with great attention. According to the National Retail Federation’s estimates, 152 million people will “invade” the American stores during this weekend, 10% more than in 2010.
And if the queues which usually start from the night before the Black Friday were not been enough, many shops have planned to anticipate the opening at midnight.
It seemed that the Black Friday this year was intended to be a great success. Too bad, however, that some things din’t go precisely as planned.
Real fights formed outside the department stores: shouting and shoving characterized the long waitings of all customers.
But in some places buyers did even worse things, like in Los Angeles where a woman, who decided to use the OC-spray against potential customers to prevent them from “stealing” goods that she wanted to buy, has injured more than 20 people.
Or in California, where a man fired a few shots as he walked with an overstuffed trolley towards his car in the parking.
Long lines were also formed in New York, especially in front of various Best Buy shops, a popular chain of household appliances and electronics, which distributed numbered cards at the entrance to avoid crowds and accidents.
Several European tourists also queued to enjoy discounts and take advantage of the favorable exchange rate. Long lines will continue to invade the streets throughout the rest of the weekend.
But violent incidents aside, the enormous number of buyers is definitely a good sign that bodes well for the world economy. A real bargain that allowed retailers to do great business on a night that was not all that black, after all.
