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Black Friday
黑色星期五
The long weekend
漫長的周末
A new, earlier discount frenzy grips Christmas shoppers
新一輪提前促銷打折狂潮吸引了眾多圣誕購物者
THE rhythms of Christmas used to be so simple. Buy presents in December, eat and drink too much, return unwanted gifts, then hunt bargains in the January sales. Such habits may now be altered by the arrival on British shores of Black Friday, an American retail phenomenon.
圣誕的節奏一直都很單一。在12月買禮物，盡情吃喝，再退還那些不中意的禮物，然后在一月大減價之際狂購便宜貨到手軟。而如今這樣的習慣，很可能隨著“黑色星期五”—美版“雙十一”—登陸不列顛海岸而悄然改變。
Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving. This year it falls on November 28th. As Thanksgiving day revolves around the eating, so Black Friday revolves around the shopping. It has become the biggest day of the year for American retailers as they discount thousands of products, kick-starting the Christmas shopping season. According to one story the name thus refers to shops doing such booming trade that they go from the red into the black. It might equally be named because of the casualty rate. Shoppers get hurt in the stampede for bargains. Some have even died.
“黑色星期五”就是每年感恩節之后的第一天。今年就是11月28日。像感恩節的主題是美食一樣，“黑色星期五”的主題便是購物。因在“黑色星期五”商家們會給成千上萬的商品大打折扣開啟圣誕購物季，由此這一天成了美國零售商們每年最盛大的一天，有一種說法是，這個名字正說明了那些在這天生意異常興隆的商家大額進賬，轉虧為盈（紅色記錄赤字，黑色記錄盈利）。還有一種說法是因為在這天的傷亡率。顧客們會在爭搶折扣商品的擁堵人群中受傷。有些人甚至會為此喪命。
Since they do not celebrate Thanksgiving, Brits had never taken to Black Friday, until last year. Then, some British retailers joined American-owned companies like Amazon to introduce big savings. This year many more have embraced it. Visa Europe predicts that shoppers will spend 6,000 per second on the day. John Lewis, a big London department store, is opening for its longest day ever, from 8am to 10pm.
因為從來不過感恩節，所以去年之前英國人對黑色星期五一直無感。而其后，部分英國零售商加盟了類似亞馬遜這種美國公司來引進各種省錢方式。在今年，已有更多的零售商投入到這些公司的懷抱。據維信歐洲（Visa Europe，信用卡集團）預測，在黑色星期五這一天，購物者們將每秒消費6000英鎊。英國一家大型零售商店約翰·路易斯，在這天也會迎來其史上營業時間最長的一天，從早8點直至晚上10點。
With such demand, why stop at one day? Most retailers are now stretching it into the following week, at least until Cyber Monday. That's the day after the Black Friday weekend when shoppers are supposed to go crazy online, although John Lewis reckons they won't be able to wait that long. Last year, its mobile traffic in the peak hour 7-8am was fourteen times higher on Black Friday than anything it had seen before.
有這般需求，為何只做一天？如今，許多零售商正在將這購物狂潮延伸至“黑色星期五”后的一周，至少延至“網絡星期一”。“網絡星期一”是“黑色星期五”周末后的第一天，在這天購物者會在網絡上瘋狂購買，盡管約翰·路易斯斷言顧客們不可能等那么久還如此瘋狂購物。去年“黑色星期五”這天，約翰·路易斯在早高峰7點至8點間的移動流量是以往所見任何數據要高出十四倍。
For retailers, it all gets people into the buying mood for Christmas early. The only worry, argues Joshua Bamfield of the Centre for Retail Research, is that shoppers might be loth to fork out at regular prices when the discounts end.
對零售商來說，“黑色星期五”早早的將大眾的圣誕購物情緒調動起來了。來自零售研究中心的約書亞班菲爾德認為，唯一擔憂的是，購物者們很可能在打折結束后不愿以正常價格購買物品。譯者：張娣 校對：邵夏沁
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