Black Friday
Shoppers rush into a store in Laramie, Wyoming, as it opens on Black Friday, 2013.
Observed by	Traditionally:[1] United States Others: Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Poland, Italy, Greece, New Zealand, India, Norway, Sweden, France, Spain, Iran, Israel, Brazil, The Netherlands, Mexico (as El Buen Fin) and increasingly in other parts of the world.
Type	Commercial
Significance	Popular shopping day
Observances	Shopping
Date	Day after U.S. Thanksgiving
2023 date	November 24  (2023-11-24)
2024 date	November 29  (2024-11-29)
2025 date	November 28  (2025-11-28)
2026 date	November 27  (2026-11-27)
Frequency	Annual
Related to	Thanksgiving, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, Christmas, Buy Nothing Day

Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States. It traditionally marks the start of the Christmas shopping season in the United States. Many stores offer highly promoted sales at discounted prices and often open early, sometimes as early as midnight^[2] or even on Thanksgiving. Some stores' sales continue to Monday ("Cyber Monday") or for a week ("Cyber Week").

"Black Friday" has evolved in meaning and impact over the years, initially referring to calamitous days, with a notable early instance being Black Friday (1869) in the US. This financial crisis saw a dramatic plunge in gold prices, affecting investors. The term was later used in American retail, starting ambiguously in the 1950s. Initially associated with workforce absenteeism post-Thanksgiving, it was reinterpreted by Philadelphia police to describe the shopping-induced congestion. Attempts at rebranding to "Big Friday" failed, and the term "Black Friday" solidified by the 1980s, referring to the pivotal point where retailers purportedly shifted from loss ("in the red") to profit ("in the black"). This day marks the unofficial start of the Christmas shopping season, with promotional sales aiming to draw large crowds. Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year in the United States^[3][4][5] and retailers prioritize it and Cyber Monday as highly profitable holiday shopping days.^[6]

The concept has since globalized, with countries around the world adopting "Black Friday" sales to mimic the U.S. phenomenon, adjusting local customs or creating similar events. The advent of online shopping and events like "Cyber Monday" have expanded the traditional one-day shopping frenzy into a broader holiday shopping season, diluting the singular focus of Black Friday, and expanding its economic impact.

Etymology

For centuries, the adjective "black" has been applied to days upon which calamities occurred. Many events have been described as "Black Friday", although the most significant such event in American history was the Panic of 1869, which occurred when financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk took advantage of their connections with the Grant Administration in an attempt to corner the gold market. When President Grant learned of this manipulation, he ordered the Treasury to release a large supply of gold, which halted the run and caused prices to drop by 18%. Fortunes were made and lost in a single day, and the president's own brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, was ruined.

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, and again in 1952. Here it referred to the practice of workers calling in sick on the day after Thanksgiving, in order to have a four-day weekend. However, this use does not appear to have caught on. Around the same time, the terms "Black Friday" and "Black Saturday" came to be used by the police in Philadelphia and Rochester to describe the crowds and traffic congestion accompanying the start of the Christmas shopping season. In 1961, the city and merchants of Philadelphia attempted to improve conditions, and a public relations expert recommended rebranding the days "Big Friday" and "Big Saturday", but these terms were quickly forgotten.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]}

The use of the phrase spread slowly, first appearing in The New York Times on November 29, 1975, in which it still refers specifically to "the busiest shopping and traffic day of the year" in Philadelphia. Although it soon became more widespread, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 1985 that retailers in Cincinnati and Los Angeles were still unaware of the term.^[13]

As the phrase gained national attention in the early 1980s, merchants objecting to the use of a derisive term to refer to one of the most important shopping days of the year suggested an alternative derivation: that retailers traditionally operated at a financial loss for most of the year (January through November) and made their profit during the holiday season, beginning on the day after Thanksgiving.^[7] When this was recorded in the financial records, once-common accounting practices would use red ink to show negative amounts and black ink to show positive amounts. Black Friday, under this theory, is the beginning of the period when retailers would no longer be "in the red", instead of taking in the year's profits.^[7][13][14] The earliest known published reference to this explanation occurs in The Philadelphia Inquirer for November 28, 1981.^[15]

Since the early 21st century, there have been attempts by U.S.-based retailers to introduce a retail "Black Friday" to other countries around the world. Retailers outside the US have attempted to promote the day to remain competitive with US-based online retailers.^[16]

In more recent decades, global retailers have adopted the term and date to market their own holiday sales.^[17]

History

Thanksgiving's relationship to Christmas shopping led to controversy in the 1930s. Retail stores would have liked to have a longer shopping season, but no store wanted to break with tradition and be the one to start advertising before Thanksgiving. For this reason, in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a presidential proclamation proclaiming Thanksgiving to be the fourth Thursday in November rather than the last Thursday, meaning in some years one week earlier, in order to lengthen the Christmas shopping season.^[18] Most people adopted the President's change, which was later reinforced by an act of Congress, but many continued to celebrate Thanksgiving on the traditional date.^[18]

In 2015, Amazon.com was the first to offer "Black Friday in July" deals on what they called "Prime Day", promising better deals than on Black Friday. Amazon repeated the practice in 2016 and 2017, and other companies began offering similar deals.^[19]

Analyst Marshal Cohen of The NPD Group claimed in 2020 that Black Friday is declining in favor of online shopping,^[20] and that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this process. The pandemic also resulted in holiday deals being offered over a longer period of time, even as early as October.^[21] Fewer people shopped in person on Black Friday 2020, and most business took place online. Market research company Numerator said sellers of clothing, tools and other items considered nonessential during lockdowns were not promoted as heavily because lower production meant less available to sell.^[22] Adobe Analytics reported that online sales reached $9 billion in 2020, 22% more than the previous year. Foot traffic to stores fell 48% in 2020 from last year, according to RetailNext, while Sensormatic Solutions reported a 52% decrease.^[23]

"Black Thursday"

For many years, retailers pushed opening times on Black Friday earlier and earlier, eventually reaching midnight, before opening on the evening of Thanksgiving. Kmart opened its stores on Thanksgiving as early as 1991, and was open on Thanksgiving Day for many years. ^[24] In 2009, Kmart manager Freddy Moss opened at 7 p.m. on Thanksgiving in order to allow shoppers to avoid Black Friday traffic and return home in time for dinner with their 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". In subsequent years, other stores followed this trend, opening earlier and earlier on Thanksgiving, or remaining open all day, beginning in the early morning hours.^[25][26] Some retail and media sources have used the terms "Gray Thursday" or "Brown Thursday" instead.^[27][28][29]

The 2014 "Black Thursday" sales were generally a failure, as overall sales for the holiday week-end fell 11% compared to the previous year despite heavy traffic at the stores on Thanksgiving night.^[30] In response, a number of retailers decided to go back to closing on Thanksgiving for 2015, and Walmart, although its holding firm opening on the holiday and holding its sale, also pledged to offer the same deals online for those who wished to stay home.^[31]

Retailers have received pushback from some consumers over opening on Thanksgiving Day.^[32] Shopper opposition to stores opening on Thursday includes the perceived over-commercialization of Thanksgiving, retail workers not being able to spend time with their loved ones on the holiday,^[33] and Thursday doorbuster sales forcing consumers to sacrifice enjoying Thanksgiving evening with their families in order to avoid missing out on highly sought-after items which might not be available again prior to Christmas.

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 had already reduced their hours and dropped 24/7 operations in response to the pandemic, and several retailers known for opening on the holiday (particularly Kmart, which has typically been open regular hours) have rapidly declined.^[34] 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.^[22] Most major retailers again closed on Thanksgiving in 2021, with Target stating that its decision would be permanent; the small minority of retail chains remaining open on the holiday that year were limited mainly to pharmacies, dollar stores and grocery stores, retail categories that traditionally do not hold doorbusters.^[35]

Black Friday around the world

Africa

Nigeria

Black Friday deals were first introduced in 2014 in Nigeria.

South Africa

In South Africa black Friday was introduced in 2014.

Asia

India

The holiday shopping season in India has traditionally been aligned around the "festive period" of major festivals usually falling around October or November, such as Diwali.^[36][37][38] Similar to U.S.-style shopping events such as Black Friday, online retailers adopted the practice of holding multi-day promotions during this period, such as Amazon's "Great Indian Festival" and Flipkart's "Big Billion Days". India's Independence Day (August 15) had also recently attracted similar events.^[38][39]

Nonetheless, the concept of Black Friday has also been imported into the subcontinent via international retailers–a move that influenced some Indian retailers to also adopt the promotion.^[38][40]

Iran

Like other countries in West Asia, black Friday is very popular.

Lebanon

Lebanon was exposed to black Friday around 2014.

Saudi Arabia

In Saudi Arabia, black Friday started when a local e-commerce platform noon.com created Yellow Friday Sale which is now an annual event.

United Arab Emirates

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 U.A.E., falling around the same time as Black Friday globally.^{[citation needed]}

Europe

Belgium

Black Friday in Belgium is seriously marketed by retailers since 2016. Especially online shops have broke sales records during the last edition of Black Friday, which provides a base for further growth of popularity of Black Friday in Belgium. After 2016, Black Friday in Belgium has grown strongly. The participating shops have increased to over seventy during the Black Friday period of 2017. During Black Friday 2018, a total of 119 participating stores were measured in Belgium.^{[citation needed]}

Denmark

In Denmark, Black Friday is widely practiced.

Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Gray_Thursday
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