The Friday following Thanksgiving is referred to as "Black Friday" in American slang. It traditionally signals the beginning of the holiday shopping season in the US. Many retailers open early, often as early as midnight or even on Thanksgiving, and frequently have heavily advertised bargains with steep discounts. Some retailers extend their offers till Monday ("Cyber Monday") or for a full week ("Cyber Week").
Since 2005, Black Friday has consistently been the busiest shopping day of the year in the United States. It takes place on the fourth Friday in November, unless November 1 falls on a Friday.
Black Friday History
Since 1952, the day following Thanksgiving has been regarded as the official start of the holiday shopping season in the US. The custom can be related to the concept of Santa Claus parades. Santa Claus frequently makes an appearance at the conclusion of Thanksgiving parades, providing the impression that "Santa has arrived" or "Santa is just around the corner" because Christmas is always the next significant Christian holiday after Thanksgiving.
Department stores frequently sponsored Santa or Thanksgiving parades in the late 19th and early 20th eras. These include the Eaton's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which has been held in Manhattan, New York City, since 1924, and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which has been held in Toronto, Canada, continuously since 1905. The parades would be used by department retailers to start a significant advertising campaign. Over time, it came to be accepted practice that no establishment would attempt to run Christmas advertising prior to the procession. As a result, the start of the holiday shopping season was set for the day after Thanksgiving.
The connection between Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping caused debate in the 1930s. Retailers would have preferred a longer shopping season, but nobody wanted to start promoting before Thanksgiving and break with tradition. In order to extend the Christmas shopping season, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a presidential decree in 1939 changing the date of Thanksgiving from the final Thursday of November to the fourth Thursday, which in some years means one week earlier. The majority of people embraced the President's action, which was later strengthened by congressional legislation, although many others remained to observe Thanksgiving on a customary day. Some people began calling the new day "Franksgiving.
With the promise of better deals than Black Friday, Amazon.com was the first to offer "Black Friday in July" deals in 2015. Amazon resumed the strategy in 2016 and 2017, at which point other businesses started providing comparable discounts.
The coronavirus pandemic, according to analyst Marshal Cohen of The NPD Group, has sped up the trend of Black Friday's decline in favor of internet shopping. Due to the epidemic, Christmas discounts were also made available for a longer period of time, even as early as October. On Black Friday 2020, fewer individuals went shopping in person and more purchases were made online. According to market research firm Numerator, producers of clothing, tools, and other products deemed unnecessary during lockdowns did not advertise as aggressively because there were fewer of these items available to buy. Online sales reportedly hit $9 billion in 2020, up 22% from the prior year, according to Adobe Analytics. RetailNext reported a 48% drop in foot traffic to stores from the previous year, while Sensormatic Solutions recorded a 52% drop.
Black Friday United States
Although "The Day After Thanksgiving" is observed as a holiday for state government employees in California and a few other places, Black Friday is not an official holiday in the United States. Sometimes it is observed in place of a government holiday like Columbus Day. Many non-retail workers and educational institutions are off on Thanksgiving Day and the Friday after. This turns Black Friday weekend into a four-day weekend in addition to the next regular weekend, which is thought to attract more potential customers.
The busiest place in America on Black Friday in Charlotte, North Carolina's SouthPark neighborhood.
For a variety of reasons, Black Friday is a popular shopping day. It is the first day following the final significant holiday before Christmas, which signifies the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season. In addition, a lot of firms give their staff members the day off on Thanksgiving weekend. Almost all stores in the nation, large and small, offer various sales including constrained quantities of "doorbuster" items to draw customers.
Retailers used to typically open at 6 a.m. for many years, but by the late 2000s, many were opening between 4 and 5 a.m. In order to maintain a competitive advantage or to just keep up with the competition, stores extended their business hours in the early 2010s. In 2010, Toys 'R' Us started its Black Friday sales at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving and upped the ante by giving away free coloring books and boxes of Crayola crayons while supplies last. In contrast, Black Friday discounts at other stores, including Sears, Express, MK, Victoria's Secret, Zumiez, Tillys, American Eagle Outfitters, Nike, Jordan, Puma, Aéropostale, and Kmart, started early on Thanksgiving morning and lasted until as late as 11 p.m.
Friday night. Forever 21 took a different approach, opening on Friday as usual and holding late discounts till early on Saturday. When several stores opened at midnight for the first time in 2002, including Target, Kohl's, Macy's, Best Buy, and Bealls. When Walmart and a number of other retailers announced that they would open the majority of their stores at 8 PM on Thanksgiving in 2012, some employees called for a walkout. In 2014, businesses like Target, Walmart, Belk, and Sears opened at 7 p.m. on Thanksgiving, while JCPenney, Best Buy, and Radio Shack opened at 6 p.m. In what has been referred to as a legacy of blue laws, three states—Rhode Island, Maine, and Massachusetts—forbid larger supermarkets, big box retailers, and department stores from opening on Thanksgiving. A public hearing on a measure allowing retailers to open on Thanksgiving took place on July 8, 2017.
In the past, it was typical for Black Friday deals to continue into the weekend after. But in recent years, this tradition has mostly vanished, maybe as a result of retailers' attempts to instill a sense of urgency.
The impact of Black Friday shopping on the commercial success of the Christmas shopping season is frequently discussed in the news media, although there is really a weak or even a negative correlation between Black Friday sales and overall holiday retail sales.
The amount spent on Black Friday declined in 2014 for the first time since the recession of 2008. During the four-day Black Friday weekend, 50.9 billion dollars were spent, an 11% decrease from the previous year. However, there was no recession in the American economy. Given that many shops now distribute their promotions over the full months of November and December rather than focusing them on a single shopping day or weekend, Christmas creep has been blamed for the declining significance of Black Friday.
On April 23, 2014, ".blackfriday" became the latest top-level domain to join the ICANN family (along with the more conventional.com,.net, and.org).
Black Friday was gradually losing its relevance in 2015, according to Neil Stern of McMillan Doolittle, as many businesses opened on Thanksgiving and many sales began far earlier than that. Additionally, online purchasing made the day less significant. Only 18% of American citizens, according to a 2012 Gallup poll, planned to purchase on Black Friday.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which "has dramatically altered shopping patterns, has seemingly dealt a fatal blow," according to an article in Ad Age magazine published in 2020, "has dealt a fatal blow to an American capitalist tradition that has been on the wane for years as online shopping rises in popularity."
Black Friday Australia
Black Friday is a contentious name in Australia because it doesn't refer to shopping at all but rather the terrible Black Friday bushfires that happened in Victoria from 1938–1939. It has only lately been advertised as a shopping day in Australia by brick-and-mortar stores and internet merchants. Online Shopping USA held a Twitter event in 2011. The #osublackfriday hashtag was required for Twitter users to follow along and tweet their preferred sales and discounts from retailers. Apple opened up its Black Friday sales to Australian customers in 2013. Customers who made purchases online received free delivery and free iTunes gift cards with each purchase.
On its website, the discounts were advertised as part of a "One day Apple shopping event Friday, November 29" promotion. Australian customers can purchase goods with "Black Friday" deals from the US and have them shipped to Australia through Australia Post's ShopMate parcel-forwarding service. Additionally, a lot of shops across the nation operate Black Friday specials both offline and online.
Black Friday Germany
English-language merchant promotions for "Black Friday" in Germany refer to a full week of bargains as "Black Week" and "Black Shopping" (excluding Sundays when most retail stores are closed). The hours of operation for the stores remain the same during this sales period. Although products are given at lower prices, the price cuts are not much greater than weekly price decreases generally. In 2006, Apple was the first business to launch a unique Black Friday campaign specifically for the German market.
Apple does not advertise a "one-day shopping event" in Germany and does not use the term "Black Friday." Brick and mortar establishments have already started to adapt the shopping event, while initially, it was only online retailers that utilized it as an opportunity to lure in new customers with discounts. German consumers broke a record in 2016 by spending more than €1 billion over the Black Friday weekend: German consumers spent over €1.3 billion ($1.54 billion) over the four days from Black Friday to Cyber Monday 2016, according to a report by the Centre for Retail Research.
Black Friday was registered as a wordmark in Germany in December 2013. Super Union Holdings Limited, a Chinese business, is the proprietor. The German Federal Patent Court and the German Federal Court of Justice largely abolished the trademark rights. As a result, the trademark protection has practically expired.
Conclusion
Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days of the year. But, beyond the deals and discounts, we also have to acknowledge that it kind of reminds us of a time when people didn’t have access to proper safety measures. The truth is, there are still some people who get injured or even die in car accidents on Black Friday due to a lack of awareness about traffic rules and regulations.
If you want to avoid these issues this year too, don’t just stay home as people usually do! Instead, start early by checking for parking options near your destination before driving there. And if you drive yourself and end up getting hurt because of reckless driving, don’t lose hope! Just make a call at the +1-888-717-8811 toll-free number we mentioned above and leave your details so that our customer service representatives can connect with you immediately.
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