Black Friday (shopping)

• 1. Etymology And Origins

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  The phrase Black Friday first appeared in American history to describe a financial disaster, not a shopping day. In 1869, financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk manipulated the gold market, causing prices to drop by 18% after President Grant ordered the Treasury to release gold. Fortunes were made and lost in a single day, and the president's own brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, was ruined. This event became known as the Black Friday of 1869.

  The earliest known use of Black Friday to refer to the day after Thanksgiving occurred in the journal Factory Management and Maintenance for November 1951. The term described workers calling in sick on that day to create a four-day weekend. This usage did not catch on nationally. Around the same time, police in Philadelphia and Rochester used the terms Black Friday and Black Saturday to describe the heavy crowds and traffic congestion accompanying the start of the Christmas shopping season. In 1961, city officials and merchants attempted to rebrand the days Big Friday and Big Saturday, but these terms quickly faded from public memory.

  The phrase spread slowly, appearing in The New York Times on the 29th of November 1975, where it still referred specifically to the busiest shopping and traffic day of the year in Philadelphia. By 1985, retailers in Cincinnati and Los Angeles remained unaware of the term. As national attention grew in the early 1980s, merchants suggested an alternative explanation: that retailers traditionally operated at a financial loss for most of the year and made their profit during the holiday season beginning on the day after Thanksgiving. Accounting practices once used red ink for negative amounts and black ink for positive ones. Under this theory, Black Friday marked the point when retailers would no longer be in the red. The earliest known published reference to this explanation appears in The Philadelphia Inquirer for the 28th of November 1981.

• 2. Retail Evolution And Timing

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  For many years, retailers pushed opening times earlier and earlier until they reached midnight before opening on the evening of Thanksgiving. Kmart opened its stores on Thanksgiving as early as 1991 and remained open on that day for many years. In 2009, Kmart manager Freddy Moss opened at 7 p.m. on Thanksgiving to allow shoppers to avoid Black Friday traffic and return home for dinner with families.

  Two years later, a number of retailers began opening at 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. on what became derisively known as Black Thursday. Other stores followed this trend, opening earlier and earlier on Thanksgiving or remaining open all day from early morning hours. Some retail and media sources used terms like Gray Thursday or Brown Thursday instead. The 2014 Black Thursday sales were generally a failure, as overall sales for the holiday weekend fell 11% compared to the previous year despite heavy traffic at stores on Thanksgiving night.

  In response, a number of retailers decided to go back to closing on Thanksgiving for 2015. Walmart pledged to offer the same deals online for those who wished to stay home while still holding its sale. Retailers received pushback from consumers over opening on Thanksgiving Day due to perceived over-commercialization and workers unable to spend time with loved ones. Doorbuster sales forced consumers to sacrifice enjoying Thanksgiving evening with their families to avoid missing out on highly sought items.

  Most retailers abandoned efforts to hold doorbuster sales on Thanksgiving in 2020. Large crowds had been forbidden under most circumstances since March due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Major retailers such as Walmart and Target reduced their hours and dropped 24/7 operations. Several retailers known for opening on the holiday rapidly declined. According to Adobe Analytics, online shopping set a record on Thanksgiving 2020 with $5.1 billion in total spending, 21.5% higher than in 2019. Most major retailers again closed on Thanksgiving in 2021, with Target stating that its decision would be permanent.

• 3. Global Expansion And Adaptation

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  Black Friday started in Egypt in 2014 being introduced as White Friday. The change of name was due to religious, traditional, and cultural concepts. Black Friday deals started in Libya since 2019, also introduced as White Friday due to similar reasons. In Pakistan, the use of Black Friday shopping terminology started in 2014 in major cities which later changed to Blessed Friday due to religious reasons.

  In Saudi Arabia, black Friday started when a local e-commerce platform noon.com created Yellow Friday Sale which is now an annual event. U.A.E. Black Friday started as White Friday campaign in 2014. In 2018 local e-commerce platform noon.com created Yellow Friday in the U.A.E. The Yellow Friday Sale is now an annual event in the U.A.E., falling around the same time as Black Friday globally.

  French businesses slowly introduced the Black Friday custom into the market. Discounts of up to 85% were given by retailing giants such as Apple and Amazon in 2014. French electronics retailers such as FNAC and Auchan advertised deals online while Darty took part in this once-a-year monster sale. Retailers favored the very American term Black Friday to Vendredi noir in their advertisements. In 2016, because of terror attacks in Paris in November the year before, some retailers used the name Jour XXL instead of Black Friday.

  In Germany, Black Friday retailer advertisements refer to Black Week and Black Shopping in English with sales lasting an entire week excluding Sundays when most retail stores are closed. During this sales period, stores keep their normal working hours. Although goods are offered at reduced prices, the prices are not cut significantly more than normal weekly price reductions. Apple was the first company to run a special Black Friday campaign for the German market in 2006.

• 4. Consumer Violence And Safety

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  In 2008, a crowd of approximately 2,000 shoppers in Valley Stream, New York, waited outside for the 5:00 opening of the local Walmart. When the doors opened, the crowd pushed forward, breaking the door down, and 34-year-old employee Jdimytai Damour was trampled to death. The shoppers did not appear concerned with the victim's fate, expressing refusal to halt their charge when other employees attempted to intervene and help the injured employee. Shoppers had begun assembling as early as 9 p.m. the evening before.

  Even when police arrived and attempted to render aid to the injured man, shoppers continued to pour in, shoving and pushing the officers as they made their way into the store. Several other people incurred minor injuries, including a pregnant woman who had to be taken to the hospital. On the same day, two people were fatally shot during an altercation at a Toys R Us in Palm Desert, California.

  During Black Friday 2010, in Madison, Wisconsin, a woman was arrested outside of a Toys R Us store after cutting in line and threatening to shoot other shoppers who tried to object. A Toys for Tots volunteer in Georgia was stabbed by a shoplifter. An Indianapolis woman was arrested after causing a disturbance by arguing with other Wal-Mart shoppers. She had been asked to leave the store but refused.

  On Black Friday 2011, a woman at a Los Angeles Walmart used pepper spray on fellow shoppers, causing minor injuries to a reported 20 people who had been waiting hours for the store to open. The incident started as people waited in line for the newly discounted Xbox 360. In South Charleston, West Virginia, a 61-year-old pharmacist collapsed and died after suffering a heart attack at a store. The New York Daily News reported other shoppers did not stop to help the man, with some stepping over his collapsed body.

• 5. Digital Commerce And Technology

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  Some online stores invest a lot of money in promotional campaigns to generate more sales and drive traffic to their stores. However, they often forget about the high loads their sites are going to experience. According to Retail Gazette, a number of major retailers' websites went down as they failed to cope with the surge in Black Friday traffic in 2017. This just highlights that some retailers have not taken the necessary steps to prepare for Black Friday. Failing to prepare for peak can cause poor performance, site downtime, and ultimately lost revenue for retailers.

  In 2019, Adobe shopping data showed that around 39% of the shopping was done through smartphones. In 2022, 48% of online sales are made through smartphones, up from 44% in 2021. Meanwhile, consumers spent a record $9.12 billion shopping online during Black Friday this year. Cyber Monday, a neologism invented in 2005 by the National Retail Federation's division Shop.org, refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday based on a trend that retailers began to recognize in 2003 and 2004.

  Retailers noticed that many consumers who were too busy to shop over the Thanksgiving weekend or did not find what they were looking for shopped for bargains online that Monday from home or work. In 2013, Cyber Monday online sales grew by 18% over the previous year, hitting a record $1.73 billion with an average order value of $128. In 2014, Cyber Monday was the busiest day of the year with sales exceeding $2 billion in desktop online spending, up 17% from the previous year.