Black Friday is an American tradition where retailers have big specials on the day after Thanksgiving, the fourth Thursday in November.
"Cyber Monday" is a relatively new phenomenon where shoppers are able to get deals online on the Monday after Thanksgiving.
This time last year one in three New Zealanders bought something online and in doing so spent $130million on the two shopping days, according to figures from NZ Post. Less than $80million was spent on Boxing Day that year.
The chief executive of the Otago Chamber of Commerce, Dougal McGowan, said the sales were becoming a financial boon for the city’s retailers, both big and small.
"Predominantly for big box retailers and the fact they have quite large campaigns to go on," he said.
"The flow-on effect is that it gets people out into the shopping areas in the main street so that they enter the other businesses as well so it’s a big day for retail as well."
The American tradition had made its way here for practical reasons, Mr McGowan said.
"What it does is it provides people an opportunity to get in early before Christmas.
"We all know that particularly in mid to late December we get busy with other activities," he said.
"If we can get that dollar spend into the retail stores early, it means that they’ve got some of that in the bank before the quieter times around that New Year period."
While many shoppers were excitedly looking out for their big ticket items, not everyone was.
"It’s nothing for me ... just extraction of money, nothing else," Dunedin woman Ollie said.
She had no plans to go shopping and said New Zealand’s Black Friday was timid compared to the US version.
"If you adopt it completely then you have to do what they do there. One dollar [for a] plasma TV for 100 people who came in first.
"We don’t need it. It’s over production, it’s rubbish everywhere. We don’t need much to be happy."
