The origins of Black Friday
21/11/2016
Black Friday is a day which conjures up visions of long queues, fighting over electrical goods and knockdown prices. But, that wasn’t always the case.
The origins of Black Friday stem from the traffic police in Philadelphia, back in the 1950s, who became fed up with the amount of congestion and smog from drivers on the day after Thanksgiving, and coined the phrase to describe their busiest and dirtiest day at work.
Although not officially a public holiday, many people would take the day after Thanksgiving off work and would take to the shops where pre-Christmas sales had begun; much like the equivalent of Boxing Day in the UK.
The phenomenon only started in the UK in 2013, when Amazon slashed its prices and put on Black Friday deals. By the following year, many other UK retailers had followed suit. Electronics and popular toys are the most heavily discounted items ahead of Christmas, and it saw chaos break out in shops throughout the country as keen shoppers wrestled each other for the best buys.
Thankfully, things have calmed down a bit nowadays, with people realising that violence is a ridiculous response to trying to grab bargains, but the influence of Black Friday remains strong.
When the phrase was first mooted for this post-Thanksgiving shopping sale day, the retailers were not happy with the negative connotations it drew from other Black Friday events such as crashing financial markets, and tried to get it renamed Big Friday. But, this never caught on. So, a myth has been perpetuated that says it is the first day of the year that retailers find themselves ‘in the black’, or in profit, as they rely on the Christmas season to boost their takings.
This was further extrapolated by the media, who tried to dress up Black Friday by spreading stories of the beauty of the Christmas-decorated shops, the popularity of it being a day out for the family, increased parking facilities and, ironically given its provenance, additional police officers to ensure free-flowing traffic.
Black Friday 2016 is on 25th November, and many of Hull city centre’s shops will be putting on special deals. Keep an eye on our Offers section, and head into town to pick up a bargain.
