How Black Friday Mania Came to the U.K.

Before 2010, Black Friday didn’t exist in Britain. Now, the yearly retail sales bonanza is almost as ubiquitous in the U.K. as it is in the United States, and its tremendous growth shows little sign of slowing down in 2017.

In fact, this Friday Brits are expected to spend £1.8m ($2.39m) per minute on Black Friday, an eight percent increase on last year. That's a faster rate of growth than in the U.S. — in a country that doesn’t even celebrate Thanksgiving.