black friday

Black Friday. It’s that time of year again!

In the last couple of years, Black Friday has come to the UK. It has turned the day into a shopping frenzy for Christmas bargains. There have been fights, violence and all sorts of extreme shopping behaviour all over anticipated bargains.

Bearing all this in mind, I thought I would do some research on the day and try and understand what it’s all about.

Black Friday started in the US. It’s the day after Thanksgiving and signals the start of the holiday shopping season. I found a great article that explains all here. It explains that “Black Friday has become a marketing sensation in recent years. Since 2005, it has been the busiest shopping day of the year. To lure shoppers, retailers routinely open their doors very early in the morning (and in some cases, Thanksgiving evening!) and offer special sales and promotions to the shoppers that arrive early.”

There seems to be a few reasons why it is named “Black Friday”. From the original explanation that the bus drivers named it due to the heavy traffic that clogged the streets, to the more media friendly version that it was the day that retailers finally began to make a profit that year – with positive amounts on the balance sheets showing in black rather than the negative red.

Whilst this all explains the origination of the US day, what does it mean in the UK? Originally, Black Friday was the Friday before Christmas. The Police and NHS named it so as this was the day that people went out drinking, putting extra strain on the emergency services. However, since 2014, UK stores have adopted the Black Friday marketing idea. After some initial issues with bad publicity, many large retailers have tried to play down the event. Although, saying that, my email inbox has been bombarded this week with Black Friday deals that seem to be lasting all week. Amazon are even stating that it will have a new feature that allows you to find out what the best deals are near you.

So, love it or hate it, it seems to be here to stay. If you do take part, we hope you find a great deal and don’t get involved in any fights!