As reported by AFP, Singles' Day, created by Alibaba in 2009, took place on Friday, seeing Chinese shoppers spend more than $1bn in the first five minutes. It's become the world's biggest online shopping promotion, surpassing the main US online spending spree - the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, in just one day of trading. TFG (The Foschini Group) celebrated the promotion with special offers on the day, and I expect it won't be long until other local online stores do the same. Contributor Bandile Ndzishe looks into what led South African retailers to adopt Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving, signalling the beginning of the festive shopping season). He goes into everything you could possibly need to know about the one-day extravaganza from stores to watch, to deals predictions based on past behaviour, as well as a business case for South African retailers who adopt Black Friday, and that while it has its benefits, it may not be feasible for every brand. Needless to say, the retail industry is gearing up for the holiday season. Despite the July dip in sales growth, according to Stats SA in a release sent to Bizcommunity, retailers are pinning their hope on summer sales, hoping to make up for some of the foregone revenues earlier in the year. Enjoy reading how you can best adopt these promotions to catalyse sales over the holidays...

Comment online in our ed's column archive. Go mobile with apps and m.bizcommunity.com. Engage with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. Subscribe to YouTube and via RSS. Send all your retail news and event invitations to retailnews@bizcommunity.com, exclusive opinion pieces to contributors-retail@bizcommunity.com and international news to internationalnews@bizcommunity.com. Read "How to contribute to Biz, from op-ed pieces to news".