by Justin Dunbar, Website Manager
Black Friday is the name given to the day after Thanksgiving. Thousands of people crowd shops, standing in lines for hours to get the very best bargains. In 2017, American shoppers spent an estimated $5 billion in just 24 hours! This year’s Black Friday will start on November 23rd, and we can expect a record amount of shopping once again.
Believe it or not, Black Friday was actually given its name due to shoplifting in Philadelphia during the annual Army-Navy football. However, in the late 1980s, retailers started to use it in a more positive way; the day after Thanksgiving marked the time when the stores in America were actually able to make a profit. It immediately became a hit, and people soon flooded the stores to get as many possible bargains as they could. Still, Black Friday wasn’t as popular as it is today.
More people are getting involved with Black Friday as the years progress; the 2017 spendings were up 16.9% from 2016! However, some believe that Black Friday is losing its significance. Steven J.Barr, consumer markets leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), is among those that believe that it has indeed lost its significance. “Retailers have conditioned the consumer to believe everything’s on sale every day, which means the deals on Black Friday are not significantly different from any other time.” (awin.com) Furthermore, people are also using online shopping instead of actually going in person to beat the long lines that start early in the morning. Many argue that they are more concerned with getting a good deal rather than buying things of need.
Is Black Friday losing its significance? Are we not getting the bargains that we used to get as well as forgetting the purpose of it? We asked the Mills community for their opinion, and their response was nearly unanimous. “It’s losing its significance”, said Leo Schroeder, a junior at Mills. “It’s more about buying everything remotely possible rather than buying what you need.” Karine Chan, a sophomore at Mills, agreed by commenting “A lot of people don’t go to stores anymore. They prefer to go online shopping, which isn’t as much fun.”
Black Friday hasn’t evolved into anything damaging, but it is starting to morph into a struggle to buy as much as possible. More people are going online shopping, and the bargains are not what they used to be. There is a way to “save” it though. Let’s ditch the online shopping, and go to the stores to buy things we actually need. By doing this, we won’t be spending way too much money for things that aren’t a necessity for us and can help put the fun back into Black Friday. All it takes is doing those steps, and we can do our part to help restore the main purpose of Black Friday!
