The Evolution of Black Friday
My mom recently shared with me a funny story about her Black Friday experiences as a parent. After the Thanksgiving festivities ended, she would wait until I was asleep before making the late night journey to either a SuperTarget or a Toys ‘R’ Us, ensuring that “Santa” could deliver whatever toy was at the top of my Christmas wish list. However, after I stopped going to bed at 8pm, I would hear her very anxiously give so many warnings to my older cousins who were able to drive themselves to the mall on the occasion. I imagined Black Friday shopping to be like an extremely exciting family-against-family competition and despite bringing out some of the worst in people, was all in the spirit of the Christmas season. However, with the exponential growth of the internet and e-commerce, all of that holiday magic now occurs behind our computers and even our phones.
Black Friday got its name from the hordes of sports fans who would travel to Philadelphia for the Army-Navy game. Local retailers coined the phrase in reference to the spike in shoppers visiting their stores during the same weekend, and it eventually gained traction with other retailers throughout the nation. Since its origins in the early 1980s, the Black Friday holiday has quickly evolved into America’s biggest consumer shopping day of the year. This year alone Americans spent $9.8 billion on discounted appliances, technology clothes, toys and more during the holiday event. However, when the data is broken down it becomes evident how much online sales contributed to this number. 118.8 million people went shopping at physical stores during Black Friday Weekend, yet 200.4 million people made online purchases during the same time frame. While Black Friday is still a big deal for in-person retailers, the majority of companies rely on online sales to bring in the most revenue. This has been the case for a while now, as since its start in the 1990s/early 2000s, e-commerce has grown to be a significant part of the retail industry, especially during the holiday seasons. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, e-commerce accounted for 1.7% of fourth quarter retail sales in 2003. As of 2022 this had grown to 16.3%. Many stores capitalize on the accessibility and popularity of online shopping options in order to play around with the timing and percentages of their holiday discounts, often way before and after Black Friday actually occurs. As a result, the shopping event has grown from just Black Friday into Black November, expanding over the decades to include new incentives for consumers to capitalize on like Cyber Monday, Cyber Week, Travel Tuesday and more.
But how good are the discounts during Black Friday anyway, and are they really worth all of this commotion? The answer is yes. The ten biggest brick and mortar and online retailers offered discounts between 26–60% on average. Customers who shopped for jewelry saw the biggest discounts, with an average of 54% markdowns. The discounts on apparel and accessories were not too far behind, at an average of 42%. Tech products are always the best selling items of the holiday season, and this year customers saw significant price reductions on the most popular items including Amazon best sellers like Apple Airpods, LED televisions and JBL audio devices.
There are various factors that have led to the record Black Friday sales that were seen this season. Throughout this year, consumer behavior has been heavily influenced by fluctuating inflation rates and a trend of pandemic excess savings begin to dwindle. In comparison to previous Black Friday data, we’re now seeing a trend of shoppers being way more selective over which discounts they take advantage of. There was also a significant increase in the amount of customers using buy-now-pay-later services to finance their purchases, which actually amounted to $940 million by the end of November, an increase of 42.5% since last year. Additionally, retailers introduced their sales a lot earlier this year, hoping to get ahead of better deals offered by their competition. However, starting their discounts earlier has been a trend since 2021, when the supply network was significantly blocked up and caused major shipping delays. Nevertheless, despite whatever setbacks the economy may be facing, it’s clear that Americans will always make room for retail shopping, especially during the holiday season. The Black Friday we grew up with may have been a thing of the past, but it’s clear that the phenomenon will remain an influential figure of consumer spending for decades to come.
