Focusing on selling used and refurbished items this Black Friday was “a big bet” but “the right thing to do”, the boss of eBay UK has said.
The online marketplace took the decision to promote only refurbished and “pre-loved” items for the annual pre-Christmas sale this year, responding to cost of living and environmental pressures.
Even before Black Friday, UK general manager Murray Lambell had issued strident criticism of the annual event, calling it “broken” and a “frenzy with a ‘buying for buying sake’ mentality”.
Speaking to the PA news agency, he said: “On the buyer side, there’s this win-win. I can save myself a couple of hundred pounds in my shopping basket if I just think about this in the mix – and whether you’re buying for yourself or buying for someone else just make a decision on buying one or two items differently.
“And then the stats on