Black Friday shopping

All most since the day I landed here in USA on 18 August 2010, and expressed my wish to buy a Digital camera, and some other electronic item like lap top, my daughter Vijaya, also known as Vijaya, has been counselling we should wait for best deal, and make our purchase on Black Friday in Nov. 2010. I was a little perplexed about this term Black Friday, since normally amongst western nations Friday is not considered good, just as 13 is considered as unlucky number. In course of time I came to know that it is the day following Thanks Giving day celebrated in US amongst all the households with a feast of turkey and gathering of the clan if possible. Again my ignorance of Thanks giving day was also making me little uncomfortable. Now that both days are over, and today the Monday following is called Cyber Monday, I decided that I should really do a background check on the days, and see what these are all about. My research on Wikipedia opened the door to the answer I was seeking. Let us go by sequence.

1. Thanks Giving Day : Thanksgiving Day is a harvest festival celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Traditionally, it has been a time to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. While there was an underlying religious element in the original celebration, Thanksgiving today is primarily identified as a secular holiday.
In Canada, Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the second Monday in October, which is Columbus Day in the United States. In the United States, it falls on the fourth Thursday of November.

While North Americans today celebrate the story of the first Thanksgiving held in 1621 at Plymouth, Massachusetts, there is some evidence for an earlier harvest celebration on the continent by Spanish explorers in Florida during 1565. There was also a fest two years before Plymouth (in 1619) in Virginia. A gathering in Newfoundland in 1578 was to celebrate a homecoming instead of the harvest.

While not the first thanksgiving of any sort on the continent, the traditional origin of modern Thanksgiving in the United States is generally regarded to be the celebration that occurred at the site of Plymouth Plantation, in Massachusetts, in 1621. The Wampanoag Native Americans helped the pilgrims who arrived in Massachusetts cultivate the land and fish, saving them from starvation. This harvest celebration occurred early in the history of what would become one of the original Thirteen Colonies that later were to become the United States. This Thanksgiving was modeled after harvest festivals that were commonplace in Europe at the time.

Thanksgiving in the United States was observed on various dates throughout history. By the middle of the 20th century, the final Thursday in November had become the customary day of Thanksgiving in most U.S. states. It was not until December 26, 1941, however, that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, after pushing two years earlier to move the date earlier to give the country an economic boost, signed a bill into law with Congress, making Thanksgiving a national holiday and settling it to the fourth (but not final) Thursday in November.[8]

Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Especially popular in the United States, the event is spreading to other nations such as Canada and Australia. On this day, many retailers open very early, often at 4 a.m., or earlier, and offer promotional sales to kick off the shopping season. Black Friday is not actually a holiday, but many employers give their employees the day off, increasing the number of potential shoppers. It has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005,[1] although news reports, which at that time were inaccurate,[2] have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time.[3]


The day's name originated in Philadelphia, where it originally was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving. Use of the term began by 1966 and began to see broader use outside Philadelphia around 1975. Later an alternative explanation began to be offered: that "Black Friday" indicates the period during which retailers are turning a profit, or "in the black."[4]

The news media have long described the day after Thanksgiving as the busiest shopping day of the year.[3] In earlier years, this was not actually the case. In the period from 1993 through 2001, for example, Black Friday ranked from fifth to tenth on the list of busiest shopping days, with the Saturday before Christmas usually taking first place.[2] In 2003, however, Black Friday actually was the busiest shopping day of the year, and it has retained that position every year since except 2004, when it ranked second.[1]

Black Friday is popular as a shopping day for a combination of several reasons. As the first day after the last major holiday before Christmas it inaugurates the Christmas season. Additionally, many employers give their employees the day off as part of Thanksgiving leave, increasing the potential number of shoppers. In order to take advantage of this, virtually all retailers in the country, big and small, offer various sales. Recent years have seen retailers extend beyond normal hours in order to maintain an edge, or simply keep up with, competition. Such hours may include opening as early as 4:00 a.m. or remaining open overnight on Thanksgiving day and beginning sales prices at midnight. In 2010, Toys 'R' Us began their Black Friday sales at 10:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving day and further upped the ante by offering free boxes of Crayola crayons and coloring books for as long as supplies lasted. Other retailers, like Sears, Aeropostale, and K-Mart began Black Friday sales early Thanksgiving morning, and ran them through as late as 11:00 p.m. Friday evening. Forever 21 went in the opposite direction, opening at normal hours on Friday, and running late sales until 2:00 a.m. Saturday morning.[5][6] Historically, it was common for Black Friday sales to extend throughout the following weekend. However, this practice has largely disappeared in recent years, perhaps because of an effort by retailers to create a greater sense of urgency.

The Black Friday shopping has not been without its share of violence. There have been instances of unruly behaviour of shoppers, often leading to death on account of trampling. In 2008 a crowd of approximately 2,000 shoppers in Spring Valley, NY waited outside for the 5:00 a.m. opening of the local Wal-Mart. As opening time approached the crowd grew anxious and when the doors were opened the crowd pushed forward, breaking the door down, and trampling a 34 year old employee to death. The shoppers did not appear concerned with the victim's fate, expressing refusal to halt their stampede when other employees attempted to intervene and help the injured employee, complaining that they had been waiting in the cold and were not willing to wait any longer. Shoppers had begun assembling as early as 9:00 the evening before. Even when police arrived and attempted to render aid to the injured man, shoppers continued to pour in, shoving and pushing the officer as they made their way into the store. Several other people incurred minor injuries, including a pregnant woman who had to be taken to the hospital.[18][19][20] The incident may be the first case of a death occurring during Black Friday sales; according to the National Retail Federation, "We are not aware of any other circumstances where a retail employee has died working on the day after Thanksgiving."[21]

The violence and unruly crowd created in me and my daughter a sense of fear, and we decided to forgo the option of going to more popular stores. Fortunately, the Office Depot store near our place in Gulf Breeze offered us the best option of getting the things we wanted and also no crowd. When I landed there at around 5 am. on Black Friday there were just 5 people ahead of me, and couple of employees from the stores handed us vouchers for the lap tops wanted, and told we could pick up other vouchers/goods as we entered the stores. Thus it was a very easy Black Friday shopping, without any hassles. As for other things Viju wanted to set up house when she will move to Houston in Jan end, she with Sagar went to Wall Mart, earlier night around 11.30 pm., located around 5 miles away, and picked up lots and was back by 1.30 am. Thus she was free to come and pick up things from Office Depot, and also some from Beales outlet in the same complex.

The term Cyber Monday, a neologism invented in 2005 by the National Retail Federation's division Shop.org, refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday based on a clear consumer trend that retailers began to recognize in 2003 and 2004. At the time, retailers noticed that many consumers, who were too busy to shop over the Thanksgiving weekend or did not find what they were looking for, shopped online that Monday from home or work to find bargains.