Definition: Black Friday

What is Black Friday?

Black Friday is the first Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States and traditionally marks the start of the crucial shopping season before Christmas.

Its name goes back to observations made by the police in Philadelphia in the 1950s. Back then, large crowds of suburban shoppers and tourists flocked to the city in the days leading up to the annual Army-Navy football game, which took place every year on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The influx of visitors and traffic overwhelmed the city's resources, which police derided as "Black Friday" due to the chaotic scenes. In the late 1980s, retailers began to associate Black Friday with a boost to the bottom line, labelling it as the day when shops finally "come out of the red" (with losses) "into the "black" (with profits). This narrative of moving from losses to profits helped to popularise the importance of Black Friday.

Originally, Black Friday was an in-store event, but now there are also robust online promotions and cyber deals that utilise short-term sales, massive discounts and limited stock products to attract customers both physically and digitally. It has established itself as not only one of the highest-grossing shopping days of the year, but also the biggest shopping day in the United States overall. Black Friday has proven to be so popular and successful that other countries outside the US have also started to introduce their own Black Friday shopping sales, which take place around the same time as in America.

The following Monday, known as "Cyber Monday", is another shopping event that focuses on online deals and special offers.