Holidays

Black Friday

Holidays
Black Friday
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Did you know? Because Black Friday is not an official holiday, the U.S. Postal Service operates as usual, meaning your regular mail carrier is likely delivering packages while most of the country is out hunting for deals. elaborate

Fact 1 of 30

30 facts about Black Friday

  1. 1
    In certain regions, some stores have employed professional crowd control specialists who use non-verbal signals and specific standing formations to guide shoppers safely through aisles during high-traffic doorbuster hours.
  2. 2
    Because Black Friday is not an official holiday, the U.S. Postal Service operates as usual, meaning your regular mail carrier is likely delivering packages while most of the country is out hunting for deals.
  3. 3
    Many retail stores use a strategy called price anchoring, where they display an original price that was only used for a very short time during the year to make the current sale price look like a much better deal.
  4. 4
    Some dedicated shoppers have been known to wear fanny packs specifically to keep their hands free for faster grabbing of sale items while navigating crowded aisles.
  5. 5
    To help shoppers understand savings, many stores use a system where they mark the original price as the highest price the item ever sold for during the year, even if it only sold at that price for a single day.
  6. 6
    Many people believe that the name Black Friday was invented by retailers to highlight profit, but the term was originally meant as a negative descriptor for the misery police officers faced while working long shifts during the holiday weekend.
  7. 7
    If you look at the supply chain, the massive surge in volume during Black Friday requires logistics companies to hire hundreds of thousands of temporary workers, effectively creating a seasonal labor economy that mirrors the hiring spikes of the agricultural harvest.
  8. 8
    The original name Black Friday had nothing to do with shopping and was actually coined by Philadelphia police in the 1950s to describe the chaotic traffic jams and crowds of people who flocked to the city for the annual Army-Navy football game.
  9. 9
    The evolution of the day from a one-day event to a month-long series of sales has changed how supply chains manage logistics in the fall.
  10. 10
    A rare historical fact is that in 1961, there was a failed attempt to rename the day to Friday Big Friday to combat the negative association with police traffic congestion.
  11. 11
    Some extreme shoppers carry laminated maps of the store layouts to ensure they don't waste a single second walking to the wrong department.
  12. 12
    In the United Kingdom, Black Friday was barely a thing until about a decade ago, when American retailers with international branches brought the concept over.
  13. 13
    Some employees have been known to hide their own favorite sale items in obscure aisles of the store to ensure they can buy them on their lunch break.
  14. 14
    Retail analysts track Black Friday sales as a bellwether for the overall health of the consumer economy for the coming year.
  15. 15
    Some stores have experimented with letting shoppers enter in waves to avoid the stampede, resulting in crowds that look like they are waiting for a concert ticket.
  16. 16
    Online shopping has become so popular that the website crash rate on Black Friday has become a significant metric for tech companies to measure their server stability.
  17. 17
    A common belief is that the day is called Black Friday because stores finally move from the red into the black, but this accounting narrative was actually created years after the name became popular.
  18. 18
    There is a specific phenomenon where shoppers buy things they do not need simply because they feel a weird competitive pressure to grab the item before someone else does.
  19. 19
    Retailers have been known to create special versions of electronics specifically for Black Friday that have fewer features or cheaper components than the versions sold year-round.
  20. 20
    People often think Black Friday deals are the lowest prices of the entire year, but many items are actually marked down even further in January during post-holiday clearance.
  21. 21
    Despite the name, Black Friday is technically not a federal holiday, meaning most government offices and banks remain open for business.
  22. 22
    Some stores have started selling items at a loss on Black Friday just to get customers in the door, hoping they will buy other full-priced items while there.
  23. 23
    The term Cyber Monday was actually created by marketing teams to encourage people to shop online, trying to replicate the Black Friday frenzy on the internet.
  24. 24
    It is a common misconception that Black Friday is the start of the holiday shopping season, but retailers often begin their marketing and sales as early as September.
  25. 25
    In 2011, a woman used pepper spray on fellow shoppers at a Los Angeles store in an attempt to secure a discounted gaming console.
  26. 26
    Many people assume that retailers make the majority of their annual profit on Black Friday, but in reality, their profit margins are often squeezed by heavy discounting.
  27. 27
    Some retail workers have been known to wear body cameras during Black Friday shifts to document interactions and ensure safety amidst the frantic crowds.
  28. 28
    Black Friday is not actually the busiest shopping day of the year in the United States, as that title almost always goes to the Saturday right before Christmas.
  29. 29
    In 2014, a store in South Africa had to close its doors early because the bargain-hunting crowd became so enthusiastic that they accidentally broke the entrance doors off their hinges.
  30. 30
    The name Black Friday was originally coined by police in Philadelphia in the 1950s to describe the chaotic traffic jams and crowded sidewalks that occurred the day after Thanksgiving, which they dreaded working.
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