What is Black Friday?

By Trey Duff

What is Black Friday? Well, it's a nonofficial holiday that originated in the United States in the early 1960s from business and store owners using the day after Thanksgiving to create huge sales to turn their losses into profit or get out of the red and into the black(referring to the debt chart). In just a few decades Black Friday was turned into a holiday of enormous savings all over the US with almost every major company or business participating.  Black Friday has always been a huge holiday for Americans and even other parts of the world for savings and scrambling around the store before everything sells out; however, in light of online businesses and companies offering online shopping, most Americans have switched to online shopping and hardly even leave their homes to go inside stores at all. Compared to 20-30 years ago in the early 2000s and late 1990s, many people would be lined up outside the stores with the best deals hours before the stores opened their doors. 

One of our teachers here at Bowling Green High School, Coach Lowe, said, “It used to be a mess in the stores trying to get the best deal”. Some crazy people even went to the extreme extent of camping out overnight in tents at certain stores' front doors that would give extra special deals for the first person or first couple of people, such as an entire purchase discount or even free items. Or just had limited stock on certain items such as TVs, laptops, and much more. Many of these stores would sell out early in the day from the rush of people coming to the store to buy as much as possible.

Although Black Friday is not officially a holiday, millions still participate in its activities. Last year people in America alone spent $9.2 billion dollars on Black Friday. This was a new world record for the most money spent on Black Friday. Let alone the newer sub-holiday that has come with online shopping Cyber Monday the Monday after Thanksgiving where many online stores give deals just as good as they would if they had an in-person store on Black Friday. Most people use Black Friday and Cyber Monday to purchase Christmas presents for family and loved ones. 

Some companies such as Amazon currently have over 6,000 deals on sale as of November 16th. They officially drop their Black Friday deals on the 17th. The deals are already ranging from 15%-50% off certain items. Many items are targeted toward Christmas items. Prime members (Amazon's subscription program) with the Amazon Prime Visa card are earning 5% cash back during the Black Friday sales.  Other companies already throwing out big deals for this Black Friday are Target, Best Buy, and Walmart. These are just some of the many companies that have already offered deals a week before the holiday. Many more will be offering Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals this coming Thanksgiving.