Having been asked, I thought it would be easy to look up the origin of this overhyped marketing gimmick on this forum. To my surprise the phrase “black friday” returns no results.
Can anyone enlighten an Englishman?
Try Wikipedia: Black Friday (shopping) - Wikipedia
I always use Google to search the SDMB, rather than the built-in search, i.e.
“black friday” name site:boards.straightdope.com
Since the only question you actually asked was:
Yes, but it take a great deal of lighter fluid.
Since it’s not clear precisely what you know and don’t know: The American holiday of Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday late in November. Many people regard the day after Thanksgiving as the start of the Christmas season, and one thing you do during the Christmas season is go shopping for Christmas gifts. Further, the day after Thanksgiving is a day off work for many people, with nothing else to do that day. Thus, many people are inclined to go shopping on that day.
Retailers, of course, have noticed this effect. In fact, there may even be so much shopping volume on that one day that that’s the day when the store starts turning a profit: The ledgers go from red to black on that day (hence the name). And if there are going to be a lot of shoppers out and about, you want them to be coming to your store specifically, rather than to the competition, so that’s a good day to have sales, and to run advertisements heavily in advance.
But of course, the sales and advertisements also tend to increase the number of shoppers, and so you get a positive feedback effect, and it grows into the extravaganza of capitalist consumerism you know and loathe.
For the record, not every American gets up early to do their Christmas shopping on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving). In fact I have never done that in my life.
I have found that the sales on Saturday and Sunday, assuming you really want to shop that weekend, are almost as good as those offered on Friday.
I have been told that large retailers offer a few key items with steep discounts (i.e. 70%+ off) to lure shoppers into their stores. These are called loss leaders and once you are in their store they hope you will buy items that aren’t as heavily discounted.
My brother, who is physically disabled went out early on one Black Friday to pick something up and was knocked to the ground by a crowd of eager buyers.
I don’t think saving an extra 10% over the normal sales is worth the loss of sleep, bumper to bumper traffic, parking hassles and aggressive crowds that go along with Black Friday… but that’s just me.
And, as another data point, contrary to popular belief it is not the biggest shopping day of the year.
That’s a standard answer, but a later spin on the term and an urban legend.
Here’s a great summary of the origin in Philadelphia half a centy ago showing it was about the gridlock of the shopping public. The orginal finds and work was done by our own Tammi Terrell of the whole nine yards fame.