photo credit :macworld.co.uk
The day after Thanksgiving is referred to as Black Friday, and it is the biggest day for shopping as extravagant discounts are applied to thousands of products across various retailers. This year, Black Fridayfalls on 27 November
Black Friday is the
day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States (the fourth Thursday of
November). Since the early 2000s, it has been regarded as the beginning of the
Christmas shopping season in the US, and most major retailers open very early
(and more recently during overnight hours) and offer promotional sales. Black
Friday is not an official holiday, but California and some other states observe
"The Day After Thanksgiving" as a holiday for state government
employees, sometimes in lieu of another federal holiday such as Columbus
Day.[2] Many non-retail employees and schools have both Thanksgiving and the
following Friday off, which, along with the following regular weekend, makes it
a four-day weekend, thereby increasing the number of potential shoppers. It has
routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005,[3] although
news reports, which at that time were inaccurate,[4] have described it as the
busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time.[5] Similar
stories resurface year upon year at this time, portraying hysteria and shortage
of stock, creating a state of positive feedback.
In 2014, spending
volume on Black Friday fell for the first time since the 2008 recession. $50.9
billion was spent during the 4-day Black Friday weekend, down 11% from the
previous year. However, the U.S. economy was not in a recession. Christmas
creep has been cited as a factor in the diminishing importance of Black Friday,
as many retailers now spread out their promotions over the entire months of
November and December rather than concentrate them on a single shopping day or
weekend. [6]
Some sources state
that the term originated in Philadelphia, used to describe the heavy and
disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic that would occur on the day after
Thanksgiving.[7][8] An alternative explanation is that retailers traditionally
operated at a financial loss ("in the red") from January through
November, and "Black Friday" indicates the point at which retailers
begin to turn a profit, or "in the black".[7][9] Contrary to what
many believed, Black Friday did not originate from the sales of slaves on the
day after Thanksgiving.[10]
For many years, it
was common for retailers to open at 6:00 a.m., but in the late 2000s many had
crept to 5:00 or even 4:00. This was taken to a new extreme in 2011, when
several retailers (including Target, Kohl's, Macy's, Best Buy, and Bealls[11])
opened at midnight for the first time.[12] In 2012, Walmart and several other
retailers announced that they would open most of their stores at 8:00 p.m. on
Thanksgiving Day, prompting calls for a walkout among some workers.[13] In 2014
stores such as JCPenney, Best Buy, and Radio Shack opened at 5 PM on
Thanksgiving Day while stores such as Target, Walmart, Belk, and Sears opened
at 6 PM on Thanksgiving Day.[14][15] Three states, Rhode Island, Maine, and
Massachusetts, prohibit large supermarkets, big box stores and department
stores from opening on Thanksgiving, due to blue laws.[16][17]
There have been
reports of violence occurring between shoppers on Black Friday. Since 2006,
there have been 7 reported deaths and 98 injuries throughout the United
States.[18] It is common for prospective shoppers to camp out over the
Thanksgiving holiday in an effort to secure a place in front of the line and
thus a better chance at getting desired items. This poses a significant safety
risk (such as the use of propane and generators in the most elaborate cases,
and in general, the blocking of emergency access and fire lanes), causing at
least one city to ban the pract
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