What the history of Black Friday tells us about holiday shopping in 2024

NEW YORK (AP) – holiday shopping season will soon hit full speed ahead with Black Friday, which is able to usher in the post-Thanksgiving shopping rush later this week.

The annual sales event not causes midnight crowds in the mall or smashing doors chaos of recent a long timelargely attributable to the ease of online shopping and the habits developed during it Covid-19 pandemic.

Retailers have already spent weeks hoping to entice ambiguous consumers bombarding customers with ads and early offers. Still, whether you visit stores or click countless emails promising huge savings, tens of hundreds of thousands of U.S. shoppers are expected to spend money this 12 months on Black Friday alone.

Industry forecasters estimate that 183.4 million people will shop in U.S. stores and online between Thanksgiving and Cyber ​​Monday, in accordance with data National Retail Federation and consumer research company Prosper Insights & Analytics. Of that number, 131.7 million are expected to buy on Black Friday.

At the same time, there are increasingly earlier Black Friday-like promotions and the growing power of other shopping events (hello Cyber ​​Monday ), proceed to vary the holiday spending landscape.

Here’s what you have to know about the history of Black Friday and what is going on on in 2024.

When is Black Friday in 2024?

Black Friday falls yearly on the Friday after Thanksgiving, which is November 29 this 12 months.

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

The term “Black Friday” has been around for several generations, however it has not all the time been related to Christmas shopping madness that we all know today. For example, the gold market crash of September 1869 was specifically called Black Friday.

Use of an expression in a relationship shopping the day after ThanksgivingHowever, it most frequently occurs in Philadelphia in the mid-Twentieth century, when police and other city staff needed to take care of large crowds gathering before the annual Army-Navy football game to make the most of seasonal sales.

“That’s why bus and taxi drivers call today ‘Black Friday.’ They think in terms of the headache it’s giving them,” a sales manager at Gimbels department store told The Associated Press in 1975 as he observed a policeman trying to regulate passersby the day after Thanksgiving. Earlier mentions date back to the Fifties and Sixties.

Jie Zhang, professor of marketing at the business school Robert H. Smith at the University of Maryland, points to a 1951 reference to “Black Friday” in a New York trade publication, which noted that many staff simply called in sick on that day. after Thanksgiving in hopes of a protracted weekend.

Beginning in the Nineteen Eighties, nationwide retailers began to say that Black Friday marked the moment once they went from negative to negative attributable to holiday demand. However, since many retail firms are currently operating in the red at various times of the 12 months, experts say this interpretation needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

How did Black Friday evolve?

In recent a long time, Black Friday has turn out to be famous for flooding people into crowded stores. Endless lines of shoppers camped out at midnight in hopes of getting big discounts.

But online shopping has made it possible to do most, if not all, of your holiday shopping without having to enter a store. And while foot traffic to malls and other industrial areas has increased since the pandemic began, e-commerce shouldn’t be going away.

November sales in stationary stores reached their peak over 20 years ago. For example, in 2003, e-commerce accounted for just 1.7% of total retail sales in the fourth quarter, in accordance with data. Sales Department data.

It’s no wonder that online sales today constitute a much larger piece of the pie. During last 12 months’s holiday season, e-commerce accounted for approx 17.1% of all unadjusted retail sales in the fourth quarter, in accordance with Commerce Department data. This is from 12.7% seen at the end of 2019.

In addition to the increase in online shopping, some of the big items that got customers in the door on Black Friday – like a brand new TV – are less expensive than they were a long time ago, notes Jay Zagorsky, an associate clinical professor at Questrom at the Boston University School of Business.

“There is no need to stand in line at midnight when items normally associated with clearance sales are now significantly 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 dropped by 75% since 2014.

While many individuals will do most of their Black Friday shopping online, projections from the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights show that the majority of Black Friday shoppers (65%) still plan to buy in stores this 12 months.

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

It’s no secret that Black Friday sales don’t just last 24 hours anymore. Emails containing holiday offers start arriving before Halloween.

“Black Friday is no longer the start of the holiday shopping season. It has become the crescendo of the holiday shopping season” in what now appears like “Black Friday month,” Zhang said. Some retailers have updated their official marketing materials to incorporate a “Black Friday week.”

Retailers trying to achieve a competitive advantage and manage shipping logistics help explain the rush, Zhang said. Offering earlier holiday deals spreads out purchases, giving shippers more room to fill orders. Therefore, Zhang doesn’t expect that the five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this 12 months would create a big burden as retailers would take them under consideration.

Linking pre-Thanksgiving sales to Black Friday can be a marketing technique since it’s a reputation that buyers recognize and associate with big, limited-time deals, Zhang said.

Numerous post-Thanksgiving sales events attract shoppers after Black Friday, including: Saturday for small businesses and Cyber ​​Monday, which was designated in 2005 by the online arm of the National Retail Federation.

US consumers spent a record $12.4 billion on them Cyber ​​Monday in 2023and $15.7 million per minute during peak daytime sales hours, in accordance with Adobe Analytics. Adobe Analytics says they spent $9.8 billion online on Black Friday.

After Thanksgiving, enough people still enjoy shopping in individual that the activity is unlikely to die out, said Boston University’s Zagorsky.

While Black Friday’s importance “diminishes somewhat over time,” the shopping event continues to be “a way to connect with others,” he said. “This social aspect is important and will not go away, ensuring Black Friday continues to be an important day for retailers.”