There is a lot of excitement about shopping, discounts and profits, still why is it called ‘Black Friday Sale’?

After Thanksgiving in Philadelphia, millions of people flocked to the city for the Army-Navy football game. Roads would be jammed, thefts would increase, and policemen would be exhausted and shout, ‘It’s Black Friday!’ A 2021 New York Times report says officials cursed this day. The shops were full, but the chaos was such that even the retailers started hating the name. This was just the beginning – people were crushed under the influence of the crowd, riots even occurred. The police department itself started calling this day of crowd and jam as “Black Friday” in a negative sense.

The magic of marketing worked again
In the 1980s, retailers decided to turn this negative name into a positive marketing strategy. In old bookkeeping methods, traders would write their losses in red ink, while their profits would be written in black ink. But retailers spread the story that Black Friday is the day when their sales increase so much that they recover from the year’s losses and become profitable. It was a clever re-branding that made the name instantly popular. BBC report says that the shops of Philadelphia called it the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Discounts started, shops remained open overnight, the era of ‘doorbuster deals’ came. By the early 2000s, it had become a major spectacle in America, but one full of excitement.

Initially this ‘Black Friday Sale’ craze was limited only to America, but the craze of Internet and online shopping platforms (like Amazon, Flipkart) spread it all over the world. After 2013, US-based companies also started promoting this shopping event in other countries like India, Europe, Asia to maintain their global competitiveness. BBC News says consumer demand made it global. Now it is not just a day, but a part of ‘Cyber ​​Monday’ and ‘Cyber ​​Week’. Watch the discount race between Flipkart and Amazon in India – business worth crores!