Black Friday (Holiday Shopping)

[{"selector":"#anim-146603e6-dbd1-46f3-a882-03c7065d61cd [data-leaf-element=\"true\"]","keyframes":{"transform":["translate(0%, 0%) scale(1)","translate(0%, 0%) scale(1)"]},"delay":0,"duration":4000,"easing":"cubic-bezier(.3,0,.55,1)","fill":"forwards"}] Read More

What Is Black Friday?

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Understanding Black Friday

Important

Black Friday and Retail Spending

The Surprising Origins of Black Friday

The Evolution of Black Friday

Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday

Fast Fact

The Significance of Black Friday

When Is Black Friday?

Why Is Black Friday Important to Economists?

What Is Cyber Monday?

READ ALSO

[{"selector":"#anim-7f859d3b-254b-42ca-96f7-36a5875b73c3","keyframes":[{"transform":"scale(1)","offset":0},{"transform":"scale(1.05)","offset":0.33},{"transform":"scale(0.995)","offset":0.66},{"transform":"scale(1)","offset":1}],"delay":0,"duration":600,"easing":"ease-in-out","fill":"both","iterations":3}] [{"selector":"#anim-1097ac07-c9ea-458b-9349-7dd1230b2922","keyframes":{"opacity":[0,1]},"delay":350,"duration":3000,"easing":"cubic-bezier(0.4, 0.4, 0.0, 1)","fill":"both"}] [{"selector":"#anim-b5785410-06ef-47e5-abd3-87043730d7ba","keyframes":{"opacity":[0,1]},"delay":300,"duration":2000,"easing":"cubic-bezier(0.4, 0.4, 0.0, 1)","fill":"both"}] [{"selector":"#anim-ba16419b-a1d8-4b72-8391-769353149da6","keyframes":{"opacity":[0,1]},"delay":350,"duration":3000,"easing":"cubic-bezier(0.4, 0.4, 0.0, 1)","fill":"both"}] [{"selector":"#anim-af789d8e-449d-4ade-918a-2695255d9cb0","keyframes":{"opacity":[0,1]},"delay":300,"duration":2000,"easing":"cubic-bezier(0.4, 0.4, 0.0, 1)","fill":"both"}] [{"selector":"#anim-cbc25d03-ad37-402b-8973-0a57c5644ec9","keyframes":{"opacity":[0,1]},"delay":350,"duration":3000,"easing":"cubic-bezier(0.4, 0.4, 0.0, 1)","fill":"both"}] [{"selector":"#anim-534c31f6-8116-450c-b0ec-cf3d9cfa4cdd","keyframes":{"opacity":[0,1]},"delay":300,"duration":2000,"easing":"cubic-bezier(0.4, 0.4, 0.0, 1)","fill":"both"}] 29 Tips to Make Your Breasts Grow Faster 5 Ways My Family Makes My Life Happier 8 Practical First Kiss Tips

Black Friday (Holiday Shopping)

Black Friday (Holiday Shopping)

What Is Black Friday?

Black Friday refers to the day after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, which has also traditionally been a holiday itself for many employees.

What Is Black Friday?

It is typically a day full of special shopping deals and big discounts and is considered the beginning of the holiday shopping season.

What Is Black Friday?

The sales made on Black Friday are often thought of as a litmus test for the overall economic condition of the country and a way for economists to measure the confidence of the average American when it comes to discretionary spending.

What Is Black Friday?

Those who share the Keynesian assumption that spending drives economic activity view lower Black Friday sales figures as a harbinger of slower growth.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

– Black Friday refers to the day after Thanksgiving and is symbolically seen as the start of the critical holiday shopping season.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

– Stores offer big discounts on electronics, toys, and other gifts. – Also important to retailers: Cyber Monday, the first day back to work for many consumers after the long holiday weekend, on which online retailers offer major discounts. 0 seconds of 1 minute, 32 seconds, Volume 75%

KEY TAKEAWAYS

– Stores offer big discounts on electronics, toys, and other gifts. – Also important to retailers: Cyber Monday, the first day back to work for many consumers after the long holiday weekend, on which online retailers offer major discounts. 0 seconds of 1 minute, 32 seconds, Volume 75%

Understanding Black Friday

It's common for retailers to offer special promotions online and in-store on Black Friday. Many open their doors during the pre-dawn hours on Black Friday to attract customers.

Understanding Black Friday

To keep up with the competition, some retailers have gone so far as to keep their operations going on the Thanksgiving holiday, while others begin offering deals earlier during November.

Understanding Black Friday

Really avid bargain hunters have been known to camp out overnight on Thanksgiving to secure a place in line at a favorite store; the most fanatical have been known to skip Thanksgiving dinner altogether and camp out in parking lots for days or even weeks to get great deals.

Understanding Black Friday

The promotions usually continue through Sunday, and both brick-and-mortar stores and online retailers see a spike in sales.

Important

Black Friday also refers to a stock market catastrophe that took place on Sept. 24, 1869. On that day, after a period of rampant speculation, the price of gold plummeted, and the markets crashed.

Black Friday and Retail Spending

Retailers may spend an entire year planning their Black Friday sales. They use the day as an opportunity to offer rock-bottom prices on overstock inventory and to offer doorbusters and discounts on seasonal items, such as holiday decorations and typical holiday gifts.

Black Friday and Retail Spending

Retailers also offer significant discounts on big-ticket items and top-selling brands of TVs, smart devices, and other electronics, luring customers in the hope that, when inside, they will purchase higher-margin goods.

Black Friday and Retail Spending

The contents of Black Friday advertisements are often so highly anticipated that retailers go to great lengths to ensure they don't leak out publicly beforehand.

Black Friday and Retail Spending

Consumers often shop on Black Friday for the hottest trending items, which can lead to stampedes and violence in the absence of adequate security. For example, on Black Friday in 1983,

Black Friday and Retail Spending

customers engaged in scuffles, fistfights, and stampedes in stores across the U.S. to buy Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, that year's must-have toy, which was also believed to be in short supply.

Black Friday and Retail Spending

Appallingly, a worker at a big store was even trampled to death on Black Friday in 2008, as throngs of shoppers pushed their way into the store when the doors opened.

The Surprising Origins of Black Friday

The concept of retailers throwing post-Turkey Day sales started long before "Black Friday" was actually coined. In an effort to kick off the holiday shopping season with a bang and attract hordes of shoppers,

The Surprising Origins of Black Friday

stores have promoted major deals the day after Thanksgiving for decades, banking on the fact that many companies and businesses gave employees that Friday off.

The Surprising Origins of Black Friday

So why the name? Some say the day is called Black Friday as an homage to the term "black" referring to profitability, which stems from the old bookkeeping practice of recording profits in black ink and losses in red ink.

The Surprising Origins of Black Friday

The idea is retail businesses sell enough on this Friday (and the ensuing weekend) to put themselves "in the black” for the rest of the year.

The Surprising Origins of Black Friday

However, long before it started appearing in advertisements and commercials, the term was actually coined by overworked Philadelphia police officers.

The Surprising Origins of Black Friday

In the 1950s, crowds of shoppers and visitors flooded the City of Brotherly Love the day after Thanksgiving.

The Surprising Origins of Black Friday

Not only did Philadelphia stores tout major sales and the unveiling of holiday decorations on this special day, but the city also hosted the Army-Navy football game on Saturday of the same weekend.

The Surprising Origins of Black Friday

As a result, traffic cops were required to work 12-hour shifts to deal with the throngs of drivers and pedestrians, and they were not allowed to take the day off.

The Surprising Origins of Black Friday

Over time, the annoyed officers—using a descriptive that's no longer acceptable—started to refer to this dreaded workday as Black Friday.

The Surprising Origins of Black Friday

The term spread to store salespeople who used "Black Friday" to describe the long lines and general chaos they had to deal with on that day. It remained Philadelphia slang for a few decades, spreading to a few nearby cities, such as Trenton, N.J.

The Surprising Origins of Black Friday

Finally, in the mid-1990s—celebrating the positive connotation of black ink—"Black Friday” swept the nation and started to appear in print and TV ad campaigns across the United States.

The Evolution of Black Friday

Somewhere along the way, Black Friday made the giant leap from congested streets and crowded stores to fevered shoppers fighting over parking spaces and tussling over the latest must-have toy.

The Evolution of Black Friday

When did Black Friday become the frenzied, over-the-top shopping event it is today? That would be in the 2000s when Black Friday was officially designated the biggest shopping day of the year.

The Evolution of Black Friday

Until then, that title had gone to the Saturday before Christmas. Yet, as more retailers started touting "can’t miss” post-Thanksgiving sales, and the Black Friday discounts grew deeper and deeper, American consumers could no longer resist the pull of this big shopping day.

The Evolution of Black Friday

In 2011, Walmart announced that, instead of opening its doors on Friday morning, it would start sales on Thanksgiving evening.

The Evolution of Black Friday

That started a frenzy among other big-box retailers who quickly followed suit. Today, Black Friday is a longer event—a Black Weekend.

Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday

For online retailers, a similar tradition has arisen on the Monday following Thanksgiving—Cyber Monday. The idea is that consumers return to work after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, ready to start shopping.

Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday

Online retailers often herald their promotions and sales prior to the actual day in order to compete against the Black Friday offerings at brick-and-mortar stores.

Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday

As a result, in terms of sales, Cyber Monday has proved a hit among shoppers. Though Cyber Monday had traditionally been the biggest online shopping day of the year, it was surpassed by Black Friday in 2019.

Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), an estimated 186.4 million consumers in the U.S. shopped during the 2020 five-day holiday weekend between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday,

Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday

down slightly compared to 2019, but still higher than 2018's $165.9 million.