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A12 BUSINESS
Thursday 23 November 2023
Black Friday is almost here. What to

know about the holiday sales event’s

history and evolution

and other city workers had
to deal with large crowds
who collected before the
annual Army-Navy game
and to take advantage of
seasonal sales.
“That’s why the bus drivers
and cab drivers call today
‘Black Friday.’ They think
in terms of headaches it
gives them,” a Gimbels de-
partment store sales man-
ager told The Associated
Press in 1975, while watch-
Crowds walk past a large store sign displaying a Black Friday ing a police officer try to
discount in midtown Manhattan, Friday, Nov. 23, 2018, in New control jaywalkers the day
York. after Thanksgiving. Earlier
Associated Press references date back to
By WYATTE GRANTHAM- minds and could lead to the 50s and 60s.
PHILIPS somewhat modest spend- Jie Zhang, a professor of
AP Business Writer ing this season. The exten- marketing and the Har-
NEW YORK (AP) — If you sion of Black Friday sales vey Sanders Fellow of Re-
didn’t already guess it from and growing strength of tail Management at the
a barrage of sales ads in other shopping events (hel- University of Maryland’s
your inbox, the holiday lo Cyber Monday ) is also Robert H. Smith School of
shopping season is upon changing what holiday Business, points to a 1951
us. And Black Friday is right spending looks like today. mention of “Black Friday”
around the corner. Here’s what you need to in a New-York based trade
While Black Friday may no know about Black Friday’s publication which noted
longer look like the crowd- history and where things that many workers called
filled, in-person mayhem stand in 2023. in sick the day after Thanks-
that it was just decades WHEN IS BLACK FRIDAY IN giving in hopes of having a
ago in large part due to 2023? long holiday weekend.
the rising dependence on Black Friday falls on the Starting in the 1980s, retail-
online shopping that was Friday after Thanksgiving ers nationwide also began
accelerated by the CO- each year. In 2023, Black claiming that Black Friday
VID-19 pandemic the holi- Friday is Nov. 24. represented the time when
day sales event is still slated HOW OLD IS BLACK FRI- they went from operat-
to attract millions of con- DAY? WHERE DOES ITS ing in the red to the black
sumers. NAME COME FROM? as sales boost profits. But
The National Retail Federa- The term “Black Friday” is since many operate in the
tion projects that an esti- several generations old, black at various times of
mated 182 million are plan- but it wasn’t always associ- the year, this interpreta-
ning to shop in-stores and ated with the holiday retail tion should be taken with a
online through the five-day frenzy that we know today. grain of salt, experts say.
Thanksgiving weekend. The gold market crash of HOW HAS BLACK FRIDAY
Black Friday is set to lead September 1869, for exam- EVOLVED?
the charge, making up for ple, was notably dubbed In recent decades, Black
130.7 million of the poten- Black Friday. Friday became infamous
tial shoppers. The phrase’s use in rela- for floods of people in jam-
At the same time, econo- tion to shopping the day packed stores and endless
mists note that fear of in- after Thanksgiving, how- lines of shoppers camped
flation, while down from a ever, is most often traced out at midnight in hopes of
year ago, is still a concern to Philadelphia in the mid- scoring deep discounts.
looming in consumers’ 20th century when police But the rise of online shop-
ping has made it easier to
do most, if not all, holiday
purchases from your couch
something that was only
accelerated by COVID-19.
And while malls and in-per-
son stores have bounced
back to decent-sized
crowds compared to the
start of the pandemic, the
growing strength of e-com-
merce isn’t going away. q