The Friday after Thanksgiving every year is known as Black Friday. Black Friday is a day where most stores put big discussions on their items, and where everyone feels pressured to get all their holiday shopping done. Black Friday this year was no different, with its exclusive sales and the way it gets everyone in the holiday spirit. All thought Black Friday has been a long standing tradition, there are many different myths and theories of why it exists in the first place.
History of Black Friday
Black Friday started int the early 1950s in Philadelphia, when tons of suburban Philadelphia residents traveled to the city for their holidays shopping. According to CNN, the police started the term ‘Black Friday’, because they got no time off during the weekend because of the influx of shoppers lining the sidewalks in the city. Merchants and others caught on, and starting referencing to the chaos that Thanksgiving weekend brought as the name. In 1961, people tried to get rid of the term because they didn’t want the biggest shopping day of the year to sound like a negative holiday. As hard as people tried, the name had already stuck, but business owners learned to be happy with it, and started to make the sales last even longer than just one day. Stores made their opening times even earlier in the day, and in 2005 yet another holiday was created: Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday was the following Monday and was created so that sales would go online as well as in stores.
This Year’s Black Friday
According to CNBC, 200.4 million people shopped at stores between Thanksgiving day and cyber Monday this year. This is the record amount of people that have shopped on stores over this long weekend, even topping last years amount of shoppers. The most popular item that was purchased this year during the Black Friday sales were clothes and accessories. Most shopping still took place in stores, though many shopping websites were visited during the sales. According to CNBC, most people got about half their holiday shopping done during the Black Friday sales this year, which is surprisingly high.
Overall, Black Friday is an important day for holiday shoppers but most importantly stores. Over the past few years, the amount of money stores have made during Black Friday sales has increased and will probably continue to increase as well. Not only is Black Friday a day where thing go on sale, it is the start of the holiday season and also the sign to start holiday shopping.
Works Cited
CNBC. www.cnbc.com/2023/11/28/black-friday-weekend-shopping-turnout-soars-to-a-record.html.
CNN. www.cnn.com/2018/11/21/business/black-friday-history/index.html.
