Three notable activities have come to my attention this week, Black Friday, Snapdeal and Get. A week is stretching the time scale, but call it bloggers license.

Black Friday…..a bizzare American import , initiated in the UK by Asda Walmart, two years ago. It’s a bit like Japanese knotweed, seemed like a good idea at the time, but now you can’t get rid of it. ASDA have pulled back a bit, and this year it appears that the bulk of sales have retreated to the Internet. Amazon claims it has had just had its biggest day ever in the UK. Yet high street retailers, state it was quieter than last year. In the USA it is the day after thanksgiving. Historically, we had the equivalent with Boxing Day sales, now we have two days within the same season, sucking more margin and revenue out of the prime consumer season .

Snapdeal…catchy name, but what is it? Not immediately obvious, but it is the Indian version of Amazon and Alibaba. Currently , trading mainly in India, but have announced their intentions  and aims , to pursue the other two. Consequently, it won’t be long before we start seeing it in Europe. Now competition is no bad thing, as it will keep the others on their toes. But the flip side of this, is that it will make the market even more aggressive. Now there is a third flip side, three side coin being an interesting concept on its own , and that is there, maybe something the Indians want to buy from you.

Get…to the point, but what is the point. A French company has launched an app(Get) enabling independent retailers to create a mobile presence at little or no cost. They make their money from taking a small percentage on everything you sell via the app. Currently, I think it is only available in France but if it were to cross the channel, I could see it as a great opportunity for party retailers to access a market, that would be hitherto,be too expensive and complex for them to enter via any current alternative method.

Now it’s up to you how you view or categorise these three , but what is for certain, is that they all, in different ways, will effect all of us in our market place.