Black Friday! This is arguably the most favorite day for consumers when it comes to retail shopping because sales are everywhere. Even we retailers love this day because we enjoy interacting with new consumers.
There is a lot of heartfelt and despondent history behind black Friday but today, let us focus on the history behind Black Friday when it comes to the retail industry. So, where did this Christmas shopping craze get its name? Well, believe it or not, the term “Black Friday” was actually first associated with a financial crisis, not sales shopping. Crazy, right? Two Wall Street financiers by the name Jim Fisk and Jay Gould, together bought a significant amount of US gold in the hope of the overall price soaring and in turn being able to sell it for huge profits. On Friday 24 September 1869, in what became referred to as “Black Friday”, the US gold market crashed and Fisk and Gould’s actions left Wall Street barons bankrupt. In the Wall Street crash of 1929, when the New York Stock Exchange lost 6.3 percent of its value in a single day, followed by 12.8 percent and 11.8 percent on subsequent days, and because of this, it became known as Black Friday, Black Monday and Black Tuesday. It was not until later years that the post-Thanksgiving period became associated with the name.
The earliest evidence of the phrase Black Friday dated back to 1961, where it was used by police to describe the heavy pedestrian and vehicular traffic that would occur on the day after Thanksgiving in Philadephia, U.S.A. Large crowds of tourists and shoppers would come to the city the day after Thanksgiving for the Army-Navy football game, creating chaos, traffic jams, and shoplifting opportunities. Police officers weren’t able to take the day off and instead had to work long shifts, and started using the term “Black Friday” mockingly. The use of the phrase spread slowly, first appearing in The New York Times on November 29, 1975, in which it still refers specifically to “the busiest shopping and traffic day of the year” in Philadelphia. By the late 1980s, the term was commonly known across the nation, and retailers soon linked it to their post-Thanksgiving sales. In more recent decades global retailers have adopted the term and date to market their own holiday sales.
We hope this little piece of information has enlightened you. We have our own Black November sale offering up to 80% off. Grab something from us today.