Kilkenny Design owner says shopping local ‘more important than ever’ this Black Friday

With the annual Black Friday pre-Christmas shopping event on the horizon, one of Ireland’s leading retailers has urged consumers here to shop local and support Irish businesses where possible.

“Local businesses can only stay in business if they get support from local people,” Marian O’Gorman, the chairwoman of the Kilkenny Group, which runs 18 Kilkenny Design stores nationally, told The Irish Times.

Ms O’Gorman, a former chief executive of the business who retains ownership of the group along with her four children and group finance director Conor Lynch, is the founder of the national Champion Green initiative, which is aimed at supporting small businesses and promoting the local economy here.

As retailers and consumers in Ireland gear up for Black Friday on November 24th, a post-Thanksgiving tradition in the United States that normally involves retailers discounting products to attract shoppers, Ms O’Gorman said it was more important than ever for Irish consumers to keep their spending local.

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“Business owners are pedalling much harder to get where you got a couple of years ago, and people have less money to spend. This Black Friday we are urging people to really be conscious about spending in the local economy, on local websites and local businesses,” Ms O’Gorman said.

She highlighted that for every €1 spent in local Irish businesses, it has a multiplier effect that generates €2.50 in the economy here.

“Why spend that on overseas retailers, when you can spend it in your locality?” Ms O’Gorman said.

She acknowledged that Kilkenny Design benefits from the overseas spending of tourists visiting Ireland, but emphasised that Champion Green’s shop local push is regarding online shopping over Black Friday and the Christmas season.

“Of course we get a lot of tourists and we welcome the spend, and if you’re a tourist in another country you’re going to spend as well. But I’m really talking about the big lot of money spent online around Christmas time, and the local jobs that come from that,” Ms O’Gorman said.

A report from AIB last year estimated that consumers in Ireland spent €26 million online, or €18,000 every minute, on Black Friday.

Figures from Revolut for Black Friday in 2021 showed that two-thirds of online spending by Irish consumers was with foreign stores.

As the business challenges of the pandemic have been followed by soaring inflation, Ms O’Gorman said she had seen first hand that craftspeople supplying Kilkenny Design stores were finding the trading environment difficult.

“During the pandemic we all sang about it. Now the way inflation has gone, and the less money people have in their pockets, it’s the same thing with a different label. We would please ask Irish people to shop locally this year, it’s more important than ever,” she said.