What the History of Black Friday Tells Us About Holiday Shopping in 2024

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS, Associated Press business editor

NEW YORK — The holiday shopping season is about to reach its full potential with Black Friday, which kicks off the post-Thanksgiving retail rush later this week.

The annual sales event no longer creates the midnight mall crowds or chaos of decades past, largely because of the ease of online shopping and habits forged during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hoping to lure hesitant consumers, retailers have already spent weeks bombarding customers with ads and advance deals. Yet whether it’s visiting stores or clicking on countless emails promising huge savings, tens of millions of American shoppers are expected to spend money on Black Friday itself this year.

Industry forecasts estimate that 183.4 million people will shop in U.S. stores and online between Thanksgiving and Cyber ​​Monday, according to the National Retail Federation and consumer research firm Prosper Insights & Analytics. Of these, 131.7 million are expected to shop on Black Friday.

At the same time, earlier Black Friday-style promotions, as well as the rise of other shopping events (hello Cyber ​​Monday), continue to change the holiday spending landscape.

Here’s what you need to know about the history of Black Friday and where things stand in 2024.

When is Black Friday in 2024?

Black Friday falls every year on the Friday after Thanksgiving, which is November 29 this year.

How old is Black Friday? Where does its name come from?

The term “Black Friday” is generations old, but it hasn’t always been associated with the holiday retail frenzy we see today. The gold market crash of September 1869, for example, was notably nicknamed Black Friday.

However, the use of the phrase in connection with shopping the day after Thanksgiving is most often attributed to Philadelphia in the mid-20th century – when police and other city employees had to deal with large crowds that were gathering before the annual Army-Navy football game. to take advantage of seasonal sales.

“That’s why bus and taxi drivers call today “Black Friday.” They think in terms of the headaches it gives them,” a sales manager at Gimbels department store told the Associated Press in 1975, as he watched a police officer try to control Jaywalkers the day after Thanksgiving. The first references date back to the 1950s and 1960s.

Jie Zhang, a marketing professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, points to a 1951 mention of “Black Friday” in a New York-based trade publication — which noted that many workers were simply wearing sick the same day. after Thanksgiving in hopes of having a long holiday weekend.

Starting in the 1980s, national retailers began claiming that Black Friday represented the time when they went from red to black thanks to holiday demand. But with many retail businesses now operating in the black at different times of the year, this interpretation should be taken with a grain of salt, experts say.

How has Black Friday evolved?

Over the past few decades, Black Friday has become infamous for its influx of people into crowded stores. Endless lines of shoppers camped out at midnight hoping to score deep discounts.

But online shopping has made it possible to do most, if not all, holiday shopping without ever setting foot in a store. And even though attendance at shopping centers and other commercial areas has rebounded since the start of the pandemic, e-commerce is not disappearing.

November sales in physical stores peaked more than 20 years ago. In 2003, for example, e-commerce accounted for just 1.7 percent of total retail sales in the fourth quarter, according to Commerce Department data.

Unsurprisingly, online sales now represent a much larger slice of the pie. For last year’s holiday season, e-commerce accounted for about 17.1% of all unadjusted retail sales in the fourth quarter, according to Commerce Department data. This represents an increase compared to the 12.7% observed at the end of 2019.

Beyond the rise of online shopping, some big-ticket items that attracted shoppers on Black Friday — like a new TV — are significantly cheaper than they were decades ago, notes professor Jay Zagorsky clinical associate at Questrom, Boston University. Business school.

“There is less need to wait in line at midnight when items typically associated with door-to-door sales are now much cheaper,” Zagorsky told The Associated Press by email. He pointed to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that shows the average price of a TV has fallen 75% since 2014.

While many people will do most of their Black Friday shopping online, projections from the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights indicate that a majority of Black Friday shoppers (65%) still plan to shop online. store this year.

The “month” of Black Friday and the rise of Cyber ​​​​Monday

It’s no secret that the Black Friday sales only last 24 hours. Emails promising holiday deals are now starting to arrive before Halloween.

“Black Friday is no longer the start of the holiday shopping season. It’s become the crescendo of the holiday shopping season” during what now feels like “Black Friday month,” Zhang said. Some retailers have updated their official marketing to refer to “Black Friday week.”