Black Friday Shopping Frenzy

For as long as most of us can remember, the day after Thanksgiving has been devoted to eating leftovers, putting up holiday decorations   and, of course, to SHOPPING. The truth is that Black Friday (as it has become known) has been around a lot longer than you may think!

As early as the 19^th century people have viewed the Thanksgiving holiday as the traditional start to the holiday shopping season, and not just in the United State. This weekend is marked each year by celebrations, store sales, extreme couponing and more! In fact, the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade can be linked to Black Friday. Some 90 years ago the department store “Macy’s” spun the Black Friday shopping tradition into a key marketing tool by running its parade as an advertisement for the whole country to view.

During the Great Depression, retailers counted on the holiday shopping season just to stay in business another year. In 1939, many of the country’s largest retailers appealed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In this appeal they requested that that Thanksgiving be moved up in order to lengthen the holiday shopping season. President Roosevelt knew that this would help to stimulate the economy and hopefully help to drag the nation out of recession, so he agreed. It was then that Thanksgiving was moved to one week earlier on the calendar. However, Roosevelt failed to make the change public until October of that year and, as a result, many Americans celebrated two Thanksgivings that year. They celebrated the new Thanksgiving (jokingly dubbed “Franksgiving”) and the original one week later. Considering that the transition was handled so carelessly, it ultimately did little to boost the economy that year.

The term “Black Friday” was a term originally used to describe the September 24, 1864 stock-market chaos centered on the plunging price of gold. In the 1960s, a Philadelphia newspaper used the same term to describe the chaos related to the rush of crowds in stores. Finally, the term was justified in association with the black ink that would show a profit on the balance sheet of retailers (negative profits were to be recorded in red ink).  Thus, many people view this day as the point that retailers go into the black for the first time in a given year.  During the 1990s, this day became an unofficial retail holiday and nearly every year is recorded as the biggest shopping day of the season.

Negative (red) Net Income

Positive (black) Net Income

Today, Black Friday is a national epidemic that has much of the country waking up at the break of dawn to stand in line for “limited time”, “one day only” sales. Many retailers even have special giveaways to the first odd number of people that enter its door upon opening. Safety precautions have been put into place to protect consumers from the riots, hasty crowds and heated arguments that have been known to break out over the season’s must-have products.

Black Friday shoppers camping out in tents for deals at a local Best Buy

Even the internet has turned to this weekend to help boost profits and in 2005, the term “Cyber Monday” made its debut.  Cyber Monday is the marketing term used to describe the Monday immediately following Black Friday in the U.S. On this day e-commerce sites and online retail stores are dedicated to special discounts, specials, and coupons that can only be redeemed by purchasing the product via the internet.

Cyber Monday is beginning to gain momentum and may someday grow to be as large as if not larger than Black Friday. The following table exhibits how Cyber Monday has impacted internet sales over the past 5 years.

Although we won’t quite make it this year, Stikii hopes to join other major retailers during this shopping frenzy in 2012.  We do, however, hope you will still be in the shopping spirit come December 1^st (less than one week after Black Friday) and visit our e-commerce site at www.stikii.com. As of this date, Stikii shoes and Stik-em accessories will be available for purchase to any interested customer.  Our interactive shopping cart and “Build-a-Shoe” website application will add flavor and fun to a (sometimes) otherwise dull online shopping experience. Our products make a great gift or treat for any child. So pace yourselves shoppers, because after all, ‘tis the season!