WATCH: Money-saving expert Jasmine Birtles discusses Black Friday strategies on CGTN Europe

Black Friday, the sales bonanza that traditionally marks the start of the Christmas shopping season in the UK, used to be a day. Then it turned into a week. Now it's practically a month-long promotional extravaganza for many retailers. 

The question is, amid fears of a coming recession, whether Black Friday's never-ending extension will be enough to help counteract dwindling sales - or if it will just bring about shopping fatigue. According to British money-saving expert Jasmine Birtles, better known as 'Miss Moneysaver', some consumers' desires to buy may flag under the massive retail push. More telling was how the lengthening of the sales season showed how much retailers are relying on the coming month to prop up their businesses.

"Black Friday is probably the biggest shopping time of the year," the Daily Mail savings columnist told CGTN Europe. "Retailers are really going for it because retail figures are pretty sad at the moment. And what we're hearing is that people are finally planning on not spending as much on Christmas as they have done in the past few years."

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People in the UK are expected to spend 3 percent less on their Christmas gifts this year, according to reports. That's after retail sales volumes across the UK fell to their lowest level since February 2021, thanks in part to the cost-of-living squeeze, as well as the recent wet weather. The 2.7 percent year-on-year fall, the UK's Office for National Statistics said, had hit clothing and household goods stores the hardest.

"Honestly, we could be seeing quite a few closures come January," Birtles warned. "As we know, after the big financial crash, we did have a spate of big closures of big names, mostly in January, because they couldn't manage. High street retailers, when they realized they weren't going to be able to pay their rents, had to close. So this is what we're potentially looking at."

UK stores had already been shutting up shop along Britain's high streets with alarming regularity over the past years. That trend has only increased in 2023, with big retailers like Wilko, Boots, M&S, and Iceland all shuttering stores this year. And while October saw inflation, considered one of the causes for the dip in UK retail sales, fell to its lowest level in two years, Birtles said this won't necessarily be enough to stave off a wider and even more concerning economic crisis. 

"We've seen inflation go down and the government has said it's all up to them - of course it wasn't," she added. "But what I think we're potentially looking at now really is a recession, and I am personally more concerned about the specter of recession, which is already happening in real time in some European countries."

She pointed to Germany's economy as an example, which the International Monetary Fund says is expected to shrink by 0.5 percent this year due to ever-high inflation and a slump in manufacturing. In the UK, where the latest retail figures are already weak, having shown a drop when a rise had been expected, Brits are likely looking at a similar scenario for 2024, said the personal finances expert.

One of the key reasons, explained Birtles, is the relentlessness of the cost-of-living crisis: "Normal living costs have gone up. We are potentially seeing lower energy costs this winter, but lots of other costs have gone up, and, of course, for those who own their own homes, they are very worried about paying their mortgages."

She pointed to "massive jumps" - between 4.5 and 5 percent - in mortgage rates. "I think there's generally a sense that we need to just pull up our belts. Then people are not so embarrassed about saying, 'well, we're not going to be spending so much this Christmas.' So that's having a knock-on effect across the country."

As Black Friday looms - now essentially a season in its own right - total retail spend in the UK is surprisingly expected to jump by 3 percent this year, according to VoucherCodes 'Shopping for Christmas Report'. But that, explained the report, is essentially due to inflation.

With more than 50 percent of UK consumers believing Black Friday discounts are 'misleading', businesses will have their work cut out to rebuild consumer confidence. 

With much at stake, it remains unclear whether the run-up to Christmas will be a much needed gift to Britain's visibly ailing retail sector - or whether high street shops can expect the equivalent of a lump of coal in their sales-figures stockings. 

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