Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving in the US, and consequently the first day of the Christmas shopping season. The term “Black Friday” was first used in 1966 by the Police Department in Philadelphia to describe the headaches caused by all of the traffic caused by holiday shoppers. They used the word “black” as a reference to the headaches caused by “Black Tuesday,” the date of the big US stock market crash in 1929. Some people say that store employees began using the term “Black Friday” to refer to the dirty floors caused by all of the shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving. However, by the 1980s there was yet another theory for the development of the term “Black Friday.” The media began to report that retailers operated at a financial loss for most of the year and made their profits during the holiday shopping season, which begins the day after Thanksgiving. In accounting, when financial losses are written down they were traditionally written in red ink. When profits were written down in the accounting books, they were traditionally written in black ink. So, on the day after Thanksgiving, retailers are “in the black.” While this theory may not be entirely true, it should be pointed out that most retailers do make a profit throughout the year, however many report that their profits from the holiday season exceed their profits from the rest of the year.
Retailers aren’t the only ones who care about Black Friday: shoppers do, too! To trigger excitement for the holiday season, many retailers offer huge sales on Black Friday. These sales are often so good that shoppers will wait in line all night just for the chance to walk in the store! How good are these sales? See for yourself. On Thursday, go to a store and buy a newspaper. You’ll see lots of special sales inserts from all the big retailers. You’ll also notice that many stores will open early – some as early as 2 am! You need to get to the stores early though. As mentioned, some people wait in line all night in the cold and snow for these deals, and stores often have very limited quantities of the sale merchandise. The best and most accurate information about Black Friday sales is in the newspapers on Thanksgiving Day, but if you just can’t wait until Thursday to see if anyone has the latest tech gadget or designer bag on sale for a great deal, you can almost always find the advertisements online in advance. You can also visit www.blackfriday.com or www.theblackfriday.com, for lists of Black Friday specials.