Where Is The Real Meaning Of Black Friday?

Black Friday should be a traditional start for a holiday shopping season. When a large number of eager consumers are queuing up outside the store to ensure that they can buy their favorite items, the publicity activities of the stores will surely attract consumers.

But whether the black Friday of the day after Thanksgiving has lost its luster? Because more and more businesses have reduced this day to another Christmas shopping day, but this holiday has been advanced since December. As consumers look forward to more and more discounts, what is the profit for businesses?

A long time ago, the Christmas season was accompanied by all the shiny lights, warm music and reduced sale. After we ate Thanksgiving turkey, black Friday became the official start of Christmas season.

Today, this day is also known as "Christmas creep" - a special alleging that before the festival really started, those who had unlimited spending on our holiday atmosphere pushed ahead with promotional activities every year.

Many retailers, such as WAL-MART, Target, and Best Buy, have begun to sell their sales quarterly in October.

Retailers are downplaying the craziness of black Friday, usually before they offer attractive low prices or, like WAL-MART, offer the same discount on the e-commerce platform.

Shoppers said they were trying to protect public safety because a New York WAL-MART employee was trampled to death after the influx of customers in 2008.

But at the same time, it also reflects the involvement of the electronic business platform, and more and more people are willing to complete their Christmas shopping list online.

A recent survey shows that more than half of the respondents intend to do most of the shopping with Amazon.

Other customer surveys also confirm this trend.

Almost 1/3 of customers say they plan to complete their shopping plan before black Friday arrives, and 66% of the millennials say they plan to do most of their shopping by December 1st.

GAP has recently joined in the publicity trend. A week ago, it launched a slogan "black Friday has started". Many other retailers did the same thing. It seems that everyone does not think that it will be necessary to wait until black Friday comes before they can start a crazy price reduction.

But when we finally get together

Before saying goodbye, a few businesses resisted - perhaps just to protect their scarce profits.

A recent survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, a management consultancy, showed that 87% of customers ranked their prices as the main factor in their shopping, especially those whose families earn less than 50 thousand dollars a year. This proportion increased by 3 percentage points last year. It shows that people are still cautious about how to spend money.

There are various forecasts of holiday sales growth.

Market research firm NPD said that this quarter may be less than the same period in 2009, only about 3%.

The eMarketer forecast is likely to reach the highest sales since 2011, with an increase of about 5.7%. The largest increase is the electronic business platform, which may account for 9% of the total sales volume, which is also benefited from the emergence of the "Cyber Monday, the first Monday after black Friday" and its importance is growing gradually. "The Cyber forecast is the largest.

In a word, regardless of the origin of the phrase, the most important thing for retailers is whether the day can really make them profitable.

He has been sticking to his long-standing policy, and will not hang holiday decorations until Thanksgiving.

The clothing retailer based in Seattle also reduced the frequency of "clearance", which has been reduced by 20% compared with the previous years, and is expected to continue to decrease by 25% in 2016.

Abercrombie and Fitch, compared with the high discount offered last year, have begun to reduce sales promotion.

REI decided to try a completely different way of saying that it would close on black Friday and give employees a holiday, so that they could enjoy the beauty beyond their work.

But how long they can fight against this trend in a highly competitive market is still unknown, depending on how consumers feel about quarterly discounts.

It is hard to trace the origins of black Friday.

The first record used in 1869 was used to describe the impact of a plunge in the gold market on the stock market, but the most familiar explanation is that it refers to businessmen who finally "black" (a profit from the same table) in one year, because the profits in the last two months of a year usually account for 20% or even 1/3 of the annual profits of the business.

However, this story is not accurate, it is more like a market myth.

According to the relevant records of History Channel website, the real story originated from the use of the word by police in Philadelphia to describe the chaos brought by the influx of outskirts of the city every year after Thanksgiving.