Black Friday Statistics
The first Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States is known as “Black Friday”; a term that started being used in the 1960’s. This day was intended to draw crowds to purchase Christmas items. On Black Friday most retailers decorate their windows with holiday décor and open their doors on that special Friday at 5am and some even sooner, so as to offer bargains and “door buster” deals. A “door buster” is an item which is being sold at a discount by the retailer, so as to get people to go and shop at that specific store.
Black Friday was once also considered or to put it this way meant to be the year’s busiest retail shopping day, but then the Saturday before Christmas took over and is now really the busiest retail shopping day of any year, probably due to last minute shoppers.
The name Black Friday originated first in Philadelphia. It was the Friday after Thanksgiving 1965, when the Philadelphia police department reported witnessing sidewalks that were over-crowded, incredible traffic jams and stores that were busy all day long, from opening until closing. Today the media and retailers refer to this day as when retailers go from “being in the red” (for shoppers it means spending more money than you have in the bank) to “being in the black” (being a profitable day for retailers).
Let us now look at some statistics for Black Friday concerning it being the busiest shopping day regarding retail sales volume:
From 1993 to 2001 Black Friday was the 5th to 10th busiest day throughout those years
In 2002 & 2004 Black Friday was the 2nd busiest shopping day in those years
In 2003 & 2005 Black Friday was actually the busiest shopping day each of those years
In spite of Black Friday being referred to by the media as the busiest shopping day for retail every year, the Saturday before Christmas retains the title for the most part. Black Friday may have been the busiest day as far as traffic regarding number of customers going out to shop is concerned, but as far as volume of sales in the retail stores, that was not true. Black Friday is the day which starts the holiday shopping season. Although it is not an official holiday most people take the day off to go shop till they drop!



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