Black Friday: What Is It?

Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving, which is observed on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. It is considered to be the start of the Christmas shopping season and has evolved into a day of exclusive sales and discounts.

Economists use Black Friday sales data as a gauge of the nation’s general economic health and to gauge how confident the typical American is in their ability to spend whatever they want. Some people see lower black friday couch deals sales numbers as a sign of weaker economic expansion.

Awareness of Black Friday

On Black Friday, merchants frequently run exclusive online and in-store specials. In order to draw clients or even continue operating late into the night on Thanksgiving, many businesses open their doors before the sun rises on Black Friday. Additionally, companies are now offering “Black Friday” offers well in advance of the real day.

Extreme deal hunters may forgo Thanksgiving dinner entirely and visit any businesses that are open, but some have even been known to spend the night in order to guarantee a spot in line at a favorite retailer. Both physical establishments and internet merchants experience a surge in sales since the specials often go until Sunday.

Retail Spending and Black Friday

Retailers may plan their Black Friday sales for a whole year. In addition to offering doorbusters and discounts on seasonal products like holiday decorations and customary holiday gifts, they utilize the day to dump excess inventory.

Big-ticket products like TVs, smart gadgets, and other electronics are frequently included in doorbusters, enticing people with the goal that they would also buy higher-margin items once they are inside. Retailers frequently go to considerable measures to prevent their Black Friday ads from being leaked to the public in advance since they are so eagerly awaited.

In the lack of proper protection, customer competition for scarce supply of the newest, most popular things has occasionally resulted in violence and injury. For instance, on Black Friday in 1983, consumers fought, scuffled, and stampeded into stores all throughout the United States to purchase Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, the toy of the year that was also thought to be in limited supply. Tragically, on Black Friday in 2008, a big-box store employee was crushed to death as crowds of customers forced their way inside as soon as the doors opened.

The Unexpected History of Black Friday

Long before the term “Black Friday” was created, the idea of shops holding sales after Turkey Day was established. Taking advantage of the fact that many firms gave their staff that Friday off, retailers have been advertising big discounts the day after Thanksgiving for decades in an attempt to start the holiday shopping season and draw in crowds of customers.

Then why the name? According to others, the day is known as Black Friday in honor of the word “black” that denotes prosperity, which comes from the antiquated bookkeeping custom of writing earnings in black ink and losses in red. Retail companies are supposed to be able to sell enough on this one Friday (and the weekend that follows) to put themselves “in the black” for the whole year.

But the phrase was really used by weary Philadelphia police officers long before it began to show up in ads and commercials. The day after Thanksgiving in the 1950s brought throngs of tourists and shoppers to the City of Brotherly Love. In addition to advertising huge discounts and the debut of Christmas décor on this unique day, Philadelphia also played home to the Army-Navy football game on Saturday of the same weekend.

In order to handle the crush of cars and people, traffic officers were forced to work 12-hour shifts and were not permitted to take days off. Eventually, the irritated police began calling this awful workday Black Friday, a no longer-acceptable description.

Store salespeople adopted the name “Black Friday” to characterize the huge lineups and overall mayhem they encountered on that particular day. For several decades, it persisted as Philadelphia slang and extended to a few neighboring communities, including Trenton, New Jersey.

Eventually, “Black Friday” took over the country and began to show up in print and television advertising campaigns across the United States in the mid-1990s, promoting the positive connotation of black ink.

How Black Friday Changed

Over time, Black Friday evolved from packed streets and businesses to frantic customers battling for parking spots and squabbling over the newest must-have product. When did Black Friday become into the crazy, extravagant shopping occasion that it is today?

When Black Friday was formally recognized as the largest shopping day of the year, that would have been in the 2000s. The Saturday before Christmas has already held that honor. However, American shoppers were unable to resist the allure of this significant shopping day as more stores began advertising “can’t miss” post-Thanksgiving specials and the Black Friday discounts became more substantial.

Walmart declared in 2011 that it will begin sales on Thanksgiving evening rather than Friday morning. As a result, other big-box shops were enraged and swiftly followed suit. Black Friday has evolved into a lengthier affair, more like a Black Weekend.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) reports that during the five-day holiday weekend in 2022, which ran from Thanksgiving Day to the following Monday, 196.7 million Americans made purchases. This is “the highest figure since NRF first started tracking this data in 2017.” The number is up nearly 17 million from 2021.

During the 2022 weekend, customers spent an average of $325.44 on holiday products (compared to $301.27 in 2021). According to the NRF, $229.21 of that total was spent on presents, a figure that emphasizes how individuals increasingly view it as a chance to stock up on things they want for themselves rather than merely to cross things off their gift lists.

Cyber Monday against Black Friday

Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, has become a comparable custom for internet shops. Customers are expected to be ready to begin shopping when they return to work on their employer’s schedule following the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. To compete with the Black Friday deals at physical stores, online companies frequently announce their specials far in advance of the day.

Although Cyber Monday has been a success with consumers, Black Friday has outperformed it in terms of total internet sales. According to the NRF, over 87.2 million consumers made online purchases on Black Friday 2022, compared to 77 million on Cyber Monday.