Unless you’ve been living under a rock chances are you’ve heard of Black Friday. In essence, Black Friday is a day where stores offer massive discounts to shoppers, usually for one day only and for a limited number of people. The day is huge in the USA but has somewhat struggled to catch on in other countries.
A number of huge retailers offer a range of discounts and offer the same the following Monday (known as Cyber Monday). Most people are unaware of the history of the craze though...
What is the History of Black Friday?
The term as we know it was actually coined by the Philadelphia police in the 1950s to describe the boom of traffic and pedestrians on the streets the day after Thanksgiving, the start of the American holiday period.
Sales have been popular in November long before the term was popularised, many large retailers used to sponsor large parades and use the opportunity to announce advertisement and sales, over time the retailers began calling the day Black Friday,
The term was slowly adopted by the city’s merchants after some resistance, including trying to change the name to big Friday and by the 1980s the term was popularised across the whole US. Both shoppers and retailers began to recognise the day as the day to find post-Thanksgiving sales.
Now Black Friday is the USA’s biggest shopping event. Many stores reduce their prices dramatically for a variety of products in order to increase profits and kick off the festive season.
Black Friday in the UK
Retail giant Amazon introduced the concept of Black Friday to the UK in 2010, offering a range of discounts and deals to shoppers. Supermarket Asda later followed suit in 2013, this resulted in chaos as customers physically fought each other for discounted goods like TVs and other gadgets.
Many retailers, such as Ikea and Marks and Spencer’s don’t join in on the craze in our country but that hasn’t stopped other businesses from capitalizing on the craze. During Black Friday of 2019 Barclaycard recorded a peak amount of transactions per second in an hour. The company reported 1,184 transactions per second, a 9% increase from the previous year,
This year Black Friday falls on the 26th of November, keep an eye out for some great deals in your local stores. Alternatively, you can wait until the following Monday (the 29th) known as Cyber Monday to grab some great exclusive online-only deals and discounts.
