COVID shadow on 'Black Friday', the informal beginning to Christmas shopping
Nov 27, 2020
Washington [US], November 27 : It's the time of the year in the United States when the Christmas shopping season begins informally. It's "Black Friday". But for many businesses, especially brick-and-mortar retailers, the Friday is indeed black as they are less likely to see heavy footfall, unlike every year, owing to the COVID-19 restrictions.
"Black Friday", the next day of Thanksgiving in the United States, is a time for shopkeepers to introduce special discounts to attract customers. It sees massive sales at retail outlets around the world and not just America, thanks to globalisation. On this day, outlets around the world open early and offer highly promoted products at discounted rates.
This year, however, online shopping partners have pitched in to save the "Black Friday Sale" from the gloom. The e-commerce companies have come up with heavy discounts, in an attempt to make the "Black Friday" merrier.
The term, "Black Friday", was not widely popular until recently. Retailers have adopted the term and date, linked to markets, but not the one we know for shopping, to push their sales with attractive offers.
According to official records, the term was first used in New York about 145 years ago. But at that time, "Black Friday" had nothing to do with the Christmas shopping.
It was, in fact, connected to a stock market scam, and an eventual crash that was triggered by two investors, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, on a Friday. As per reports, the crash took a severe toll on the economy of the US for years to come.
But "Black Friday's" connection to the sales and offers by retailers originated in Philadelphia in 1905s-60s, according to historians.
In the decades that followed, there were a lot of efforts by sales personnel and retailers to change the term to something positive like "Big Friday", however, the new terms never became as popular as "Black Friday".
