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

With Black Friday kicking off the post-Thanksgiving retail rush this week, the holiday shopping season is about to reach full speed.

The annual sales event no longer features the midnight mall crowds or door-opening chaos of recent decades, thanks in large part to the ease of online shopping and habits developed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hoping to attract dubious consumers, retailers have been bombarding customers with ads and early deals for weeks. Still, tens of millions of U.S. shoppers are expected to spend on Black Friday itself this year, whether by visiting stores or clicking on countless emails promising huge savings.

Industry forecasts suggest 183.4 million people will shop in U.S. stores and online between Thanksgiving and Cyber ​​Monday, according to the National Retail Federation and consumer research firm Prosper Insights & Analytics. Of these, 131.7 million are expected to shop on Black Friday.

At the same time, ever-earlier Black Friday-like promotions, as well as the growing importance of other shopping events (hello, Cyber ​​Monday), continue to reshape the holiday spending landscape.

Here’s what you need to know about the history of Black Friday and where things stand in 2024.

When is Black Friday in 2024?

Black Friday falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving every year, this year on November 29th.

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

The term “Black Friday” is several generations old, but it wasn’t always associated with the holiday retail craze we know today. The gold market crash in September 1869, for example, was best known as Black Friday.

However, the term’s use in connection with shopping the day after Thanksgiving can most often be traced back to Philadelphia in the mid-20th century – when police and other city employees had to contend with large crowds gathering before the annual Army-Navy Football game gathered to take advantage of seasonal offers.

“That’s why bus and taxi drivers today call it ‘Black Friday.’ “They think about the headache it gives them,” a sales manager at a Gimbels department store told The Associated Press in 1975 as he observed a police officer the day after Thanksgiving tried to control jaywalkers.

Earlier references date from the 1950s and 1960s.

Jie Zhang, a professor of marketing at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, points to a 1951 mention of Black Friday in a New York trade magazine that said many workers were celebrating Day just called in sick after Thanksgiving hoping for a long holiday weekend.

Starting in the 1980s, nationwide retailers began claiming that Black Friday was the time they went from being in the red to being in the black due to holiday demand. But since many trading companies are now in the black at different times of the year, this interpretation should be viewed with caution, say experts.

How has Black Friday developed?

Over the past few decades, Black Friday has become notorious for its crowds into crowded stores. Endless lines of shoppers camped out at midnight hoping to score deep discounts.

But online shopping has made it possible to do most, if not all, holiday shopping without ever setting foot in a store. And while foot traffic in malls and other shopping districts has increased again since the start of the pandemic, e-commerce isn’t going away.

November sales in stationary retail reached their peak more than 20 years ago. For example, in 2003, e-commerce accounted for 1.7% of total retail sales in the fourth quarter, according to the Department of Commerce.

Not surprisingly, online sales now make up a much larger share of the pie. E-commerce during last year’s holiday season accounted for about 17.1% of all unadjusted retail sales in the fourth quarter, Commerce Department data shows. That’s up from 12.7% at the end of 2019.

Beyond the rise of online shopping, some high-priced items that used to lure shoppers in the door on Black Friday — like a new television — are significantly cheaper than they were decades ago, notes Jay Zagorsky, clinical associate professor at Boston University Questrom School of Business.

“There is less need to wait in line at midnight as the items normally associated with doorbuster sales are now much cheaper,” Zagorsky told The Associated Press by email. He pointed to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing the average price of a television has fallen 75% since 2014.

While many people will do the majority of their Black Friday shopping online, forecasts from the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights suggest that most Black Friday shoppers (65%) still plan to shop in stores this year.

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

It’s no secret that Black Friday sales no longer just last 24 hours. Emails with Christmas offers now arrive before Halloween.

“Black Friday is no longer the start of the holiday shopping season. It has become the highlight of the holiday shopping season,” Zhang said. Some retailers have updated their official marketing to refer to Black Friday week.

Retailers’ attempt to stay ahead of competitors and manage shipping logistics explains the rush, Zhang said. Offering early holiday deals spreads out purchases and gives shippers more leeway to process orders. Zhang therefore does not expect that the five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas will lead to significant burdens this year, as retailers would have expected.

Linking pre-Thanksgiving sales to Black Friday is also a marketing technique because it is a name that consumers recognize and associate with big, limited-time bargains, Zhang said.

Several post-Thanksgiving sales events attract shoppers after Black Friday, including Small Business Saturday and Cyber ​​Monday, which were named by the online division of the National Retail Federation in 2005.

According to Adobe Analytics, U.S. consumers spent a record $12.4 billion on Cyber ​​Monday in 2023 and $15.7 million per minute during the peak selling hour of the day. According to Adobe Analytics, they spent $9.8 billion online on Black Friday.

Boston University’s Zagorsky said so many people still enjoy in-person shopping after Thanksgiving that the activity is unlikely to die out.

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