The origin of Black Friday

How did the most profitable retail business day become a Black Friday? You are not the only one wondering about the origin of Black Friday and what’s it’s all about.

The origin of Black Friday

Most people know Black Friday as the day after Thanksgiving, when many stores open very early, have huge shopping day and become profitable(black). Well, the real story behind Black Friday, however, is not as sunny as retailers might have you believe.

Two Wall Street Financiers, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk bought a huge amount of US gold with the expectations of the overall price soaring and reselling at astonishing prices. On Friday 24th September 1869, the US gold market crashed. This dug a deep hole in the pockets of Wall Street barons and farmers who invested.

On 29th October 1929, the Wall Street Crashed again and New York Stock Exchange lost in a single day 6.3% of its value, followed by 12.8% and 11.8% the subsequent days. Those subsequent days became known as Black Friday, Black Monday and Black Tuesday.

The term “Black Friday” was first publicly used in the 1950s and 1960s. Large crowds of shoppers and tourists travel to Philadelphia after Thanksgiving for the Army-Navy football game. This created traffic jams, shoplifting and other chaotic scenarios. The Police officers sarcastically used the term because they had to work hard and long shifts during days like that. Surprisingly, the name stuck and spread throughout Philadelphia, birthing the origin of Black Friday associated with sales. In 1966, Black Friday first came in print when an advertisement about it was published in a magazine. Post-thanksgiving shopping became even more widespread in 1970s and 1980s attracting huge crowds to United States.

So why the term Black Friday for the biggest shopping day?

Shops and stores in the United States record their accounting details by hand, they record their losses in red and profits in black. After Thanksgiving shops that were in red(loss) at the beginning of the year becomes black(profit) because of the post-thanksgiving sales. This is assumed to be the reason why a phrase associated with financial crisis is used to describe the busiest shopping day.

Today, Black Friday is the biggest shopping event of the year, many stores give ridiculous discounts on their products and boost their profits. Retailers like John Lewis, Amazon and others offer discount prices for a range of products. Millions of people search websites and shops looking for the best deals.

However, the significance of Black Friday has increased competition between retailers and a huge amount of consumer/customer demand. This has led to a litany of visitors to online shopping malls and chaotic scenarios in shops. Retailers now extend their sales for more than the regular 24hours to deal with this competition and satisfy customer needs.

This year’s Black Friday Sales would begin on 26th November and there are tips to help you get the best deals from Hue2max and every other store out there.

Black Friday tips for Shoppers

  • Do an exclusive research; There’s a large list of  what to research on. Research about the products you want, prices(compare prices if you have to) online stores or high street shops.
  • Make a budget; Oh I know this is very hard to do if you are shopping freak like me. Set a spending limit and stick to it.
  • Payment mode; Will you be paying with cash or card? Will you be paying with your credit card? This is a very important decision to make your shopping easy.
  • Then know “The consumer Rights Act” that says goods should be of satisfactory quality
  • Lastly, DO NOT PUT YOURSELF INTO DEBT
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