Black Friday 2012
The Friday after Thanksgiving known as Black Friday, traditionally kicks off the Christmas shopping season.
Retailers typically have their busiest shopping day on this day and they begin to turn a profit for the holiday
season between this day and the day after Christmas. Since profit is represented by black ink in accounting,
the Friday after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday. Schools and most businesses are closed on Black Friday
and retailers open their doors before dawn and offer unbelievable early bird bargains on small quantities of
certain popular items. Consumers line up outside stores for several hours before the doors open to score these
steals.
Until the mid-2000’s, stores used to open around 5am on Black Friday. In recent years, many retailers started
advancing their opening hours to as early as 3am. Over the past two years, they have taken the game to a new
level by opening at midnight. But wait there’s more. In 2012, Wal-Mart will begin its Black Friday sales at
8pm on Thanksgiving day; stores that are normally open 24 hours a day anyway will begin their sales at this
time, while stores that are not open 24 hours a day will open at 8pm. Competitors Sears and Kmart will be
opening at 8pm on Thursday night as well, while Target and Toys "R" Us will be opening at 9pm. Other
retailers, such as Lord & Taylor are also opening on Thanksgiving for the first time.
Black Friday’s monopoly was shattered in 2005 and it now has multiple competitors. Prior to 2005, Black
Friday was confined to the traditional brick and mortar big box stores. In 2005, online merchants got into the
action because broadband Internet speeds increased substantially to foster rapid ecommerce transactions in
large volumes, and consumers that disliked freezing themselves by standing in long lines overnight and the
subsequent stampede to grab door-busters which would be gone by the time they managed to get into the
stores, loved the idea of shopping on the Internet in their PJs from their warm and cozy homes.
The term Cyber Black Friday was coined for the online version of Black Friday. Online sales have been
seeing double digit growths since 2006. Online retailers realized that maintaining such high sales growth
levels year after year would be difficult because the brick and mortar stores started matching online prices
and began opening stores earlier than before. To combat this problem, online retailers created Cyber Monday
– a marketing term for the Monday immediately following Black Friday. This gave online merchants
exclusive attention of consumers and they enticed them with sweeter deals which in some cases were better
than the ones on Cyber Black Friday. In 2010, consumers spent over a $1 Billion on Cyber Monday and the
sales figures continue to head up.
Not to be outdone, traditional retailers started the trend of Black Thursday in 2011 by keeping their stores
open on Thanksgiving Day. Of course their online brethren started offering deals on yes…Cyber Black
Thursday! Will anyone be surprised if they come up with Black Wednesday next year? Why not go all the
way and have Black Thanksgiving Week?
Here are a few websites that provide details of deals on Black Thursday/Friday and Cyber Monday.
http://www.theblackfriday.com/
http://blackfriday.com/
http://bfads.net/
http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/
http://www.cybermonday2012.com/
Let’s not forget the main thing – Have a Happy Thanksgiving!