Why high end British retailers are eschewing Black Friday Selfridges agreed it made more sense to theme its sale around Boxing Day - a UK Bank Holiday - than to latch on to what was until about three years ago just an American phenomenon. A spokesman said: "We only have two main sales a year. We have our Boxing Day sale and our summer sale. In America, Thanksgiving has a different approach to it. We're not really following that. If we were to do it the way they do it, it would basically become our Boxing Day sale. Liberty of London said its managing director, the New Yorker Ed Burstell, celebrated Thanksgiving himself, but the 139-year-old British department store would not be marking Black Friday. "We've never really done anything for it before," said a spokesman, adding that Liberty card-holders were currently being offered discounts not related to the occasion. A source at Burberry, which is also having no part in any Black Friday price-cutting, said that participating in the American event would be "out of context here." Millions of shoppers are expected to hunt for bargains both online and in stores, helping retailers shift their winter stock in the run-up to the usual festive shopping spree. Kate Ormrod, a retail analyst at Verdict, said: "Black Friday has really come out of nothing because it's not a British event. It's bigger this year than I think anyone imagined, and may even overshadow the Boxing Day sales. "But the premium retail players have done so well despite the recession that they feel "our sales are still good so why do we need to buy into these retail events?""