Black Friday [November 23]

Black Friday: Shop ’til you drop!

Black Friday (also known as Blitz Day) is the day after Thanksgiving and marks the start of the traditional Christmas shopping season in the United States.

Many may wonder how the name came to be. The origin of Black Friday comes from the shift to profitability during the holiday season. Black Friday was when retailers went from being unprofitable, or “in the red,” to being profitable, or “in the black,” at a time when accounting records were kept by hand and red indicated loss and black profit. That’s a little holiday trivia for you!

Black Friday has some of, if not, the best deals and sales of the year. A lot of electronic stores such as Best Buy and Circuit City have unbelievable deals, though in very limited amounts. So it is not uncommon for people to camp out in line in the wee hours of the night to get the gadget they want. People will do almost anything to buy desired items at half-price or less!

Of course, there is a down-side to Black Friday. Consumers may be rushing to get the best deals but employees definitely have it rough.

Philip Louie and Tiffany Thompson who both worked at Nordstrom on Black Friday last year, complained about poor consumer attitudes. “People are just so rude and they forget that there are 24 hours in a day and think that everything is going to be gone within in an hour.” Louie explains.

Thompson also said that a handful of departments get reduced prices for a limited amount of items but not particularly a huge discount on everything. Despite this fact, people still rush to such department stores to get their hands on the best deals possible.