What is Black Friday

"Black Friday", the day after Thanksgiving, is generally considered to mark the official start of the Christmas shopping period. It is seen as a barometer of the retail industry's Christmas sales performance each year and is one of the most important and busiest days of the year for businesses.

origin

About the origin of the name Black Friday, a more common view is that this day is the first day of business after Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday in November).

In addition, people usually start Christmas shopping at this time, and many stores will be crowded with customers and have large amounts of money. Traditionally, merchants will use different colors of ink to record accounts, red means loss or deficit, and black means profit.

Businesses call this Friday Black Friday, hoping that after this day, the annual revenue will turn from negative to positive, from red to black. Store employees use the name Black Friday to mock themselves, saying that this day will be extremely busy.

Black Friday is generally a big buying frenzy, with sales being the second or third highest day of the year, while the peak sales of the year is usually Christmas Eve or the Saturday before.

Some groups protesting against consumerism have also chosen this day as a day of no consumption.

Promotion

On Black Friday, most stores will open at 5 or 6 in the morning, and some even earlier. Stores will take measures such as placing advertisements in newspapers a few days before Thanksgiving, issuing coupons, and significantly reducing prices of goods to attract customers. Many consumers regard this day as a golden time to prepare Christmas gifts or buy bargains. Due to the limited number of discounted goods, many popular stores (such as Walmart) will have long queues in front of them the night before. Occasionally, stampedes will occur when stores open due to overcrowding.

Since merchants do not announce their lists of discounted products until the last minute and regard them as trade secrets, while price reduction information obtained from various channels often appears on the Internet several weeks in advance, some legal disputes have arisen.

Christmas sales in the U.S. over the years

dispute

1. Increased violence and trampling

On Black Friday in 2014, surveillance footage from stores across the UK and US showed frantic customers scrambling to buy goods, creating chaos and even beatings and trampling.

2. Issues regarding employee compensation and working hours

In the early morning of November 24, 2017, local trade unions in Italy announced that employees of Amazon's Italian branch were planning to strike on "Black Friday" to protest against their dissatisfaction with pay and working conditions.

Social Evaluation

Although the shopping on "Black Friday" is in full swing, this enthusiasm seems to reflect another kind of depression. Some commentators said that the enthusiasm on "Black Friday" is because many people dare not spend money on shopping on weekdays, and they are waiting for the "shopping season" after Thanksgiving to start the price reduction and discount of goods.

In order to avoid the negative connotations and associations of the color black, some businesses (such as Toys Rus and Best Buy) usually use the term "Green Friday", where green refers to the color of dollar bills.