As we all know, Black Friday is usually pretty crazy here in USA. Not only is it the day of super promotions and super sales. It is also one of the most dangerous days of the year for traffic (korek) and security (bezpieczeństwo). People not only shop till they drop. Crooks (oszuści) are coming out of the woods looking for an opportunity to make the extra buck pick pocketing, breaking into cars in shopping malls parking lots, robbing homes and just stealing whatever they can put their hands on.

For retail stores the Black Friday is the ultimate tester of the merchandise selection and time for last minute changes. It is the single highest volume sales (najwyższa wielkość sprzedaży) day in the entire year. As the day passes, the stores get more and more messy . Customers start seeing empty delivery cartons all over the place. The shopping is so intense there is no time to keep the display floors shiny and in perfect order they are usually in. There are long lines of cars just trying to get to the parking lots.

This is what I see here, in the States. Do people have Black Friday in Poland? I do not think so. At least I have never experienced it when I used to live in Poland…It’s been few years, so maybe something has changed. I remember shopping trips before Christmas, but never “one day craziness”.

One more thing I have to mention is the returns. It is not as easy to return the item in Poland as it is here in the States….Even if you do have the receipt – it may be a problem. Some companies in Poland are definitely getting better about it though. One of my friends from the USA visited Poland couple years ago and went on a shopping spree. She bought a lot of things, mainly clothes, in different sizes. She thought she will be able to try them on and return sizes or items she did not care for…Well, she was really surprised when she went back to the stores. They gave her a really hard time and she was not able to return most of the items. It is really too bad, but it happens. So maybe this is the reason people in Poland don’t go crazy with shopping before Christmas…maybe not. I’m sure they buy a lot things and spend some crazy money on gifts.

And here is a questions to readers that actually live in Poland: do Poles have Black Friday or not? Let us know what you observe nowadays in big cities and smaller towns, villages.

Do następnego razu… (Till next time…)