In the US, Black Friday is associated with the special sales, promotions, and discounts used by retailers to kick start the Christmas shopping season on the Thanksgiving Day holiday weekend. American consumers spend as much as $8 billion dollars on the day.
In the UK, some retailers are starting to use the popularity of the Black Friday concept to advertise similar offers. Credit card companies report that the peak day for online sales is the Monday after the last Weekend in November.
Conventional wisdom explains the term Black Friday as the day retailers accounts moved from loss to profit to the year. In banking terms, that is the point they would switch from using red to black ink for their accounts.
Dates of Black Friday in the USA
In the US, Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. Black Friday is the following day. The dates of Black Friday for the next few years are:
- 2011: November 25
- 2012: November 23
- 2013: November 29
- 2014: November 28
- 2015: November 27
Retailers open their shops early on Black Friday, sometimes as early as midnight. The retailers offer deep discounts on a limited amount of the season's best sellers, recently including items like high specification televisions, GPS navigational systems, MP3 players, tablet and laptop computers, digital cameras, Blu-Ray players, and toys.
These deep discounts are termed doorbuster deals or early bird specials, and are specifically designed to start the sale day with a rush and to generate publicity for the retailers offers.
Shoppers on Black Friday
Most shoppers use Black Friday as an opportunity to make a start on their Christmas shopping. However, the early birds that queue outside the stores before they open often target a particular doorbuster deal. Once the doors open they rush directly to secure their desired items.
Some shoppers target more than one store that open at different times in this fashion. Some families assign different family members to target specific items in one or more stores. These shoppers revel for days in their success at grabbing so many bargains.
Online retailers on Black Friday
Many retailers now offer the same deeply discounted items on their web sites as they do in their stores, often starting on Thanksgiving Day itself.
Some online only retailers like Amazon.com also offer Black Friday deals, often lasting the entire Thanksgiving Day week.
Black Friday in the UK
Neither Thanksgiving Day nor Black Friday are national holidays in the UK. However, a number of retailers and online retailers are starting to offer Black Friday offers as a way of bump starting Christmas sales. Credit card companies report that the peak day for online sales is the Monday after the last weekend in November.
In recent years UK shoppers have become very adept at holding back on much of their Christmas shopping until the stores hold short sharp sales to attract business. Even though this is not as formalized as the American concept of Black Friday, it is becoming a measurable phenomenon.
Mark Tibbits - A professional writer and educator who writes about Astrology, South Asia/China, the UK, the British Royal Family, and Religion.
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