The Death of Black Friday?

I have vivid teenaged memories of my mother, sister and their friends creating elaborate shopping plans for the day after Thanksgiving, known as Black Friday. They would meet at our house and, surrounded by newspaper fliers that advertised incredible Black Friday deals, map out the most efficient route based upon which store offered the best deals at specific times during the day.

They would argue over when to hit J.C. Penny’s, Sears and Kmart, among other stores, at the ungodly hour of 6:00 AM. My father and I would scratch our heads and stare, befuddled, at the chaos that erupted in our kitchen as all we wanted to do the day after Thanksgiving was sleep in and lay around all day eating leftovers. Today? Various factors are conspiring to cause Black Friday to die a slow death as scenes like the one described above happen with increasing rarity.

Like many urban legends, Black Friday has more than one origin story and a definition that changes over time. It seems the earliest noted use of the term, in reference to the day after Thanksgiving, occurred in a little known journal called Factory Management and Maintenance which used “Black Friday” to describe the day as the one when many called off sick in order to create a four-day weekend as early as 1951.

The next notable use occurred in Philadelphia in the early 1960s. In that town, thousands of people arrived for the annual Army vs. Navy football game the Friday after Thanksgiving and police officers used the term to describe the chaos of that day. However, the term existed long before it was used by Philadelphia cops in the 1960s. “Black” has been used numerous times to describe a bad day in history, including the start of the financial Panic of 1869, which happened to be on a Friday.

Soon, various newspapers began to use the term to refer to what they called “the busiest shopping and traffic day of the year.” As the term came into widespread use in the early 1980s, retailers sought a new origin story and hit upon the idea of the day being when they came out of debt, or “into the black” for the year. You see, accountants apparently used black ink when a business turned a profit and red ink when they were in debt. The veracity of this story has been drawn into question on several occasions. Regardless, many still accept it as fact.

Now that you know a bit about the history of the term, let’s get back to the question posed in the title of the post. Black Friday has traditionally been associated with pre-dawn shopping excursions, female bonding, avoiding being trampled as doors opened, and massive credit card debt. However, aside from massive credit card debt, much has changed.

The primary culprit for the death of Black Friday is on-line shopping. It is no longer necessary to leave the comfort of your pajamas and home to shop for holiday presents and this has been the case for well over a decade. As for the deals, many on-line retailers now offer Black Friday deals well before and after Black Friday. This practice began in 2015 when Amazon offered “Black Friday in July,” which has since come to be known as Prime Day. In fact, “Cyber Monday” may have supplanted Black Friday in terms of retail shopping importance.

Another factor leading to its death happened when retailers began opening on Thanksgiving attempting to lure shoppers and their credit cards into their stores prior to Friday. Although, this trend seems to be dying as well in recent years. However, this is due to the rise of Christmas Creep, which is the policy of stores to now spread their deals out over all of November and December. In other words, there is no longer the urgency surrounding Black Friday deals if those deals can be had for a month prior and after. A 2012 poll found that only 18% of American adults planned to shop on Black Friday.

Finally, the pandemic might have been (and continues to be) the last nail in the Black Friday coffin. Few wish to risk contracting COVID for a half-priced flat screen when they can simply order it while barely dressed and have it delivered to their door. (Hey, you can do that with MagicKitchen.com meals as well…just sayin’).

It seems that someone somewhere will soon be eulogizing Black Friday…RIP.