Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: Black Friday

Black Friday.

I am no longer shy about admitting when I am wrong. Don’t like it any better, but it just seems easier these days to admit that some long-held beliefs were just assumptions.

Take Black Friday, for example.

When applied to shopping practices, Black Friday is the term used to describe the day after Thanksgiving, when retailers offer deep discounts and shoppers race in hordes to make purchases.

I have long believed that the often-reported media explanation for the term purported to have origins as the day merchant ledgers move from the red to the black – as a recent day chamber-of-commerce-type attempt to put a positive spin on a negative term.

I was wrong. It isn’t recent at all.

The positive turn on the “black” phrase started in the early 1980’s. A quick check in the newspapers database verified the Wikipedia article. The early references, dating back to the sixties and seventies and repeated as late as 1992, when AP Business Writer Joyce M. Rosenberg wrote that Black Friday is “an inside joke for retailers trying to serve so many customers at one time.”

The phrase originates from the crush of traffic and the overwhelming demand on retail merchants for that busy shopping day, which is often reported as the busiest of the year, but isn’t really. (Most years, that day is the Saturday before Christmas…)

As is the case with avalanches and runaway trains (something we don’t see much of around here), once a thing gets a head of steam, it is hard to shut down.

If the media writers would take a moment to think about the “in the black” business ledger spin, they’d realize that the huge sales produce diminished profits on popular items which are sold in hopes the buyers will pick up an item more profitable.

It takes business acumen year-round to stay in business, and any business that fails to make a profit until the day after Thanksgiving is certainly headed for trouble.

Calm before the Storm

They’re up! The first wave of holiday lights have been mounted at a local shopping center…it’s two days before Halloween. The news had an item about “black Friday” sales already begun.

We’ve got to get busy!

In fact, a commercial for a seasonal store finished off with the line, “Hurry! Sale ends October 30th!” In other words, after tomorrow, we’re too late to get in on the Christmas Sale (ooops, I mean Holiday Sale). It’s all over before I even got started.

Presumably, the down economy is contributing to the already tense retail atmosphere. With the perception of limited consumer spending, retailers are starting earlier to get their share of the selling-pie. Personally, I think people are tired of riding the pine down in the storm cellar waiting for the economic storm to pass.

“Bust open that door,” I shouted, leaping up from the bench. “Let’s go buy a book!”

“Sounded just like a freight train,” she answered, walking up into the twilight of the clearing skies. “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

And just like that the Great Recession ended and the country sat back on its haunches and had a good laugh and a bag of Hot Cheetos.

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