When talking of Black Friday, some people may think of markdown places, long line-ups, shopping addiction. It is commonly known as the holiday shopping season where a massive shopping day following the thanksgiving takes place. Although it will be held on November 27, some stores and retail companies are already planning on how they are going to run their deals since Black Friday has become a long-month sales event.

The origin of the term Black Friday and the story behind it

There are a large number of myths about the root of the name Black Friday. For storekeepers, it is the day when they get in the black and when stores turn a big profit on the year. This story primarily dated back by the late 1980s, when a positive accounting angle, that was shifting the red (loss) from black (profit), was recorded and through which the new version of the term with positive connotations was branded. Nevertheless, it is historically notable that the modern Black Friday had also negative connotations and used to be linked to disaster. According to the language columnist Ben Zimmer, “black Friday is a term that has been in use for quite a long time to refer generally to negative events that happened to fall on a Friday”. He pursues: “the term can be traced to the frustration of factory managers in the 1950s and the frustration of Philadelphia traffic police in the 1960s”.

Black Friday 2020

People from the United States and the United Kingdom, where Black Friday has mostly spread, might be probably puzzled on how the annual sales events, that are just round the corner, are going to work. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Friday seems to be filled with uncertainty and might be going to look much more different than the previous Black Fridays. Indeed, in those times of crisis it is not yet safe to shop in overcrowded stores. Furthermore, we are moving toward a new era that turns challenges into great assets and opportunities, giving in increasingly place to technology and innovation. There even is an assumption that Black Friday 2020 would be going all online like the case of Cyber Monday, as some stores have already made a decision to keep their doors closed on Thanksgiving. Despite in-store shopping restrictions, retailers have already searched for new sales and discounts possibilities. Mashable Shopping, on its web site page, has provided latest news and updates of a few stores and companies’ have already planned that Black Friday would go online this year. Among them is Walmart which remains closed on Thanksgiving this year, it had already hosted a Prime Day-esque shopping event called “Big save” on October 11 until October 15. Similarly, Amazon had already launched the Amazon Prime Day on October 13 through October 14 and is ran the Prime Day deals alongside Black Friday deals between October 26 and November 19. Even though deals were held earlier, Amazon announced that the company would honor the main dates of Black Friday on November 27 and cyber Monday on November 30.

Sources: The New York Times/ Business Insider