Can a boycott turn the tide against Black Friday in the face of such big spending?

A wave of money is going to crash over the high street but the backlash is growing amid environmental concerns, writes James Moore

Drawing a line: will more retailers start ditching Black Friday? (Reuters)

Is it time to just boycott Black Friday, or in social media speak, #Boycottblackfriday? The backlash against the event would appear to be gathering momentum.

I wrote at the beginning of the week that there’s not much to a lot of what are dressed up as super-special mega-deals. Which? then went and proved the point by revealing that fewer than one in 20 of the products it studied over the course of a year were cheaper during the event, which now seems to last for more than a week.

The boycott hashtag has become popular on social media. There have been posters and graffiti. Memes. Some of the larger charities have muscled in with marketing extolling the virtues of giving to good causes instead of joining the checkout stampede.

Not all retailers are participating. M&S, for example, says it’s focused on offering “great value” throughout the festive season instead.

Some progressive-minded businesses are going further still. Over in the US, from where the idea came, outdoor retailer REI is closing its doors for the fifth year in a row while calling on its customers and staff to get outside and participate in clean-ups. “We’re killing our planet. This Black Friday Opt to Act,” the website says.

Other outlets have schemes of them own. They’ll sacrifice some short-term gains but maybe for long-term benefits. REI is a brand you’d want to be associated with, no?

Given the way it has brought the very worst out in people, with near riots in some places in previous years, not to mention the environmental destructiveness of such an orgy of consumerism and the harm it can do to smaller business, these are welcome developments.

But however dodgy the deals are, and however noisy the e-protests against the event, the figures will still reveal a huge spend.

Participating retailers have hired extra staff in preparation for what some experts say will be the biggest yet. Dixons, which owns Currys PC World, is opening some larger stores as early as 6am. In addition to the usual army of seasonal temps, John Lewis is calling on partners who don’t work in its shops to provide extra support.

Goodness knows what it’s like working in an Amazon warehouse at this time of year. The GMB, a union with members who have some idea, is planing demos with the aim of highlighting the issue.

Ultimately, the biggest influence on the final numbers will almost certainly be the economy and perhaps the political climate.

Does that mean #Boycottblackfriday is basically a busted flush? Not necessarily. The numbers participating may be relatively small when compared to those contributing to the wave of money washing over the high street, both real and virtual, but it still matters.

There’s that famous line from chaos theory about the butterfly flapping its wings causing a hurricane halfway across the world.

It isn’t terribly scientifically rigorous. A better explanation is that a series of small changes to initial conditions can have a drastic impact on results.

So a boycott here, someone else taking a conscious decision to limit their spending to what they were only going to buy anyway, and a few years down the line maybe you find more retailers like M&S deciding to pass. We in the media (yes, I know I’m guilty with this column) stop talking about it because interest in it is waning, and it dies a natural death.

Would anyone really mourn that?

Given the way it now seems to extend for a couple of weeks, and many of the deals aren’t really deals, it may already have passed its peak anyway. We just need to catch up.