Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving and is widely considered the start of the holiday shopping season. The term "Black Friday" gained popularity in the early 2000s through its use on websites for online sales to compete with physical store sales. As the term spread across the country via the Internet, traditional retailers also officially adopted the term.
In the US, Thanksgiving Day is the fourth Thursday of November. The next day, Black Friday, is the most popular shopping holiday of the year, with many retailers reserving their deepest discounts and best sales for that specific day.
The name is also associated with the term in the black, which represents profit in accounting. Many retailers operate at losses most of the year (in red) and turn a profit during the holiday shopping season in November and December.
In 2013 and early 2014, more and more retailers began to move back the starting times of their Black Friday deals from the early hours of Friday morning to the evening of Thanksgiving Day in order to lengthen the popular shopping day. Some retailers have gone even further and started Black Friday sales the Monday before Thanksgiving Day.
Black Friday deals often focus on consumer electronics like TVs, computers, tablets, and game systems. While some shoppers are willing to wait in line for hours to snag a great deal, many prefer to avoid the crowds and shop online.
To learn about the history of Black Friday and where the term originated, you have to go back to 1869 when two investors (Jay Gould and Jim Fisk) caused a massive market collapse by causing the price of gold to skyrocket.
The term revived in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when locals used it to refer to the day between Thanksgiving and the Army–Navy football game. This was because the event would attract huge crowds, tourists and shoppers, putting pressure on local law enforcement.
It wasn't until the 80s that the term would first be associated with shopping. Retailers re-introduced the term Black Friday to reflect the story of how accountants used to use different colored ink – red for negative earnings and black for positive earnings. Black Friday became the day when stores finally turned a profit. The rest, as they say, is history, and since then, the term has stuck and grown into a season-long phenomenon.
Black Friday falls on November 24, 2023. We've detailed what you can expect this Black Friday 2023 shopping season so you can save big on the most popular products.
Are you wondering what day Black Friday falls on this year? The major shopping holiday is always the day after Thanksgiving, which means it is on Friday, November 24 in 2023 – the fourth Friday in November.
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