has grown to be one of the biggest shopping days of the year in the US. While offering comparable discounts online, national chain stores typically offer limited time discounts on a broad range of products in an effort to draw customers into their stores.
Many people think that the origin of the term "Black Friday" is the idea that companies are "in the red," or operating at a loss, until the day after Thanksgiving, when huge sales enable them to finally turn a profit, or put them "in the black." But this is not accurate.
A more accurate history of the term can be found in the early 1960s, when Philadelphia police officers coined the term "Black Friday" to refer to the chaos that erupted when a sizable influx of suburban tourists entered the city to start their holiday shopping and, in certain cases, to attend the annual Army-Navy football game on Saturday. The cops had a difficult time dealing with the large crowds.
who put in longer shifts than normal to deal with issues like shoplifting, accidents, and traffic jams.
The phrase "Black Friday" quickly gained traction in Philadelphia. The day was given a more attractive name, "Big Friday," by city merchants.
The national adoption of the term "Black Friday" to denote a spike in retail sales did not occur until the late 1980s, when retailers began to disseminate the red-to-black profit narrative. Black Friday was dubbed the biggest shopping day in the US and the day that stores started to turn a profit for the year.
Actually, the Saturday before Christmas was when most stores saw the biggest sales.
Other shopping holidays, such as Small Business Saturday, which encourages customers to visit local stores, and Cyber Monday, which encourages online shopping, have supplanted Black Friday in recent years. Giving Tuesday was also created to encourage donations to charities.
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