The Competition Council will monitor the discounts retailers will introduce for this year’s Black Friday to see if the offers are real, according to Bogdan Chiritoiu, the institution’s president.

The Black Friday will take place on November 17 this year in Romania, one week before the official Black Friday in the US.

“The good news is that e-commerce in growing in our country. We don’t want to kill Black Friday, we don’t want to kill electronic commerce. We want to make sure it works well, to see how it can be improved,” Chiritoiu said at local TV station Digi24, reports local News.ro.

The Competition Council will check to see if the discounts are real or not. Moreover, after Black Friday, the institution will also publish a report on e-commerce.

Black Friday is the day when most retailers in the country offer big discounts for a large variety of products, from gadgets to clothing and footwear, books, toys, cars, or other products. For example, Romania’s biggest online retailer eMAG, which brought the Black Friday concept in Romania in 2011, announced it would have over 2 million discounted products in its offer, including TV sets, smartphones, laptops, fashion and sportswear, furniture, toys, and many other items. Moreover, over 4,000 sellers on the eMAG Marketplace platform will also join this year’s edition.

Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com