Black Friday or Black Friday is currently one of the biggest shopping events in the world. On this day, millions of people eagerly await the deals and discounts offered by stores, on a wide variety of products, which attracts millions of buyers.
Black Friday is celebrated on the Friday after Thanksgiving (November 23), a Christian celebration that is celebrated annually mainly in the United States and Canada, usually sharing lunch or dinner at a table full of food next to family and loved ones.
The origin of Black Friday dates back to the late 19th century, so the roots of this day date back to the Great Depression, when it was first used to refer to the gloomy conditions of the stock market. on that specific day.
However, the version we know today originated in Philadelphia, where police officers began using the term in the 1960s to describe the chaos that occurred on the streets due to traffic congestion the day after Thanksgiving.
Back then, shoppers flocked to stores to purchase Christmas gifts and other items, and traffic became heavily congested. Police officers had to work long hours to control the crowds, and they dubbed the day “Black Friday.”
Until 1863 the Thanksgiving holiday did not have a fixed date on the calendar, when President Abraham Lincoln officially established Thanksgiving Day as the fourth Thursday of the month of November, being consolidated as an important holiday, which stores took advantage of to start the Christmas shopping season.
Over the years, merchants and sellers saw this day, the day after Thanksgiving, as an opportunity to increase their sales, offering great discounts, thus Black Friday became an important commercial event in the United States, where Stores began to offer increasingly attractive discounts to attract buyers to their stores, which increased the number of buyers considerably over the years.
By the mid-1970s, Black Friday had already become a widely recognized term associated with shopping, as it marked the official start of the Christmas season and they took the opportunity to offer tempting discounts which contributed to the growth of the event. .
In the 1980s, Black Friday was established as a national tradition in the United States and the growing popularity of the event increased the number of participating stores and retailers, offering increasingly attractive discounts, as well as shopping centers and large retail chains contributed to the growth of Black Friday, by having a greater variety of products and being able to carry out large-scale discounts, favoring expansion through the media, with coverage on television, radio and the written press, which allowed Black Friday became a cultural phenomenon and part of the Christmas campaign in the United States.
In the 1980s, Black Friday began to spread to other countries, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, and in the following decades with the emergence of the Internet, it has established itself as a global commercial date, currently being celebrated in more from 80 countries around the world.
In Spain, Black Friday arrived in the 2010s through an American multinational electronic equipment company. In recent years, it has experienced great growth, which now extends throughout the weekend until the following Monday, a day in which Cyber Monday is celebrated, an exclusive day of great discounts for online purchases on the Internet.
Black Friday has been criticized by some consumers, who consider it a way to promote consumerism. However, for merchants, it is an opportunity to increase sales and attract new customers, and for customers the possibility of opting for many items at discounted prices.
It is estimated that in 2022 Black Friday sales will exceed $80 billion and more than $23 billion in online sales.
