Should Black Friday move up a week earlier?

[timmac]

Originally Posted by eliza61

Personally black friday is pretty much a big myth IMO especially since the recession started. There is nothing on sale on BF that will not be on sale the remainder of the year.

A page from my own book... and I've said it many times on these forums. There is literally no deal worth fighting black friday crowds over. None. Especially not electronics. Yes, there are many things that *appear* cheaper, but in reality, the "best" deals are usually for older models, cheaper versions, etc. Any actual cost differences on loss leader items is often pretty minimal. (To say nothing of the issue of limited quantities available.)

[Bob NC]

This nation is turning into a bunch of self-absorbed snowflakes.

I don't like shopping on Black Friday, let's do it a week earlier so I am happy.

I don't like my daughter working on Thanksgiving, let's start petitions or go on strike.

I don't like other people shopping on Thanksgiving, we need to stop that.

My cousin is serving dinner at 4:00 pm and I wanted to eat at 3:00, I'm going to stomp my feet and turn blue.

My coworker doesn't think the exact same way I do, that useless, waste of DNA.

I took a job with weird vacation rules and now they are having the audacity to follow those rules, the buttheads.

I've been complaining about Disney coffee for 27 years, but, they decided to offer better coffee without calling ME to approve their plans, how dare they.

Sheeeeeesh.....

[Planogirl]

Originally Posted by Bob NC

This nation is turning into a bunch of self-absorbed snowflakes.

I don't like shopping on Black Friday, let's do it a week earlier so I am happy.

I don't like my daughter working on Thanksgiving, let's start petitions or go on strike.

I don't like other people shopping on Thanksgiving, we need to stop that.

My cousin is serving dinner at 4:00 pm and I wanted to eat at 3:00, I'm going to stomp my feet and turn blue.

My coworker doesn't think the exact same way I do, that useless, waste of DNA.

I took a job with weird vacation rules and now they are having the audacity to follow those rules, the buttheads.

I've been complaining about Disney coffee for 27 years, but, they decided to offer better coffee without calling ME to approve their plans, how dare they.

Sheeeeeesh.....

I got a few great deal on Black Friday last year. I got a few brand new video games marked down to half price and no, I didn't see anyone else do this anytime before Christmas. It is hard to catch new X-Box games on sale anywhere.

I won't camp out but I don't mind waiting a while for a good deal.

[Fortuosity]

Originally Posted by Bob NC

This nation is turning into a bunch of self-absorbed snowflakes.

Change your verb to past tense, and I'd say you're onto something.

***********************

Don't care about Black Friday, but howzabout bi-monthly I-Waaaant-It Wednesdays? The 24 Wednesdays would make perfect all-through-the-year Christmas shopping "advent"/countdown calendars, too!

[Kathi OD]

Originally Posted by 2Kds2K9

Nope, it should not be moved. Although, it seems that retailers are working on it.

Just yesterday I was explaining the origin of "Black Friday" to my DD. That back in "the day", the Friday after Thanksgiving was the day that retailers opened up with their Christmas decorations and that was deemed the official start of the Christmas season.

Boy I miss those days!

Originally Posted by Colleen27

The entire reasoning behind Black Friday being when it is has to do with work schedules. MANY people have the day after Thanksgiving off. Moving it to a random Friday when most people have to work isn't going to work out for retailers.

As someone else said, moving it won't change things for retail workers. Thanksgiving closings are a thing of the past, like being closed on Sunday or Labor Day or just about any other holiday any more. I hate that - once again we have friends venting to us about how their teens have been told "work or be fired" so they'll be leaving Thanksgiving dinner to shuttle their kids to work. But it is the nature of our culture. Time off is bad - it is money lost for both employee and employer and on some subconscious, puritanical level it represents a selfishness or lack of work ethic to put one's private life above job demands. And moving the sales won't change that.

In reality, the name "Black Friday" has nothing to do with either.

The earliest known example of "Black Friday" to refer to the day after Thanksgiving is from an article entitled "Friday After Thanksgiving" in the November 1951 issue of Factory Management and Maintenance. The article (posted by Taylor-Blake here) was about worker absenteeism on that day, rather than the shopping rush.

But in the early 1960s, "Black Friday" came to be used in Philadelphia to describe the post-Thanksgiving shopping rush. Taylor-Blake discovered an article in a public relations newsletter from 1961 that uses "Black Friday" in its current meaning:

Santa has brought Philadelphia stores a present in the form of "one of the biggest shopping weekends in recent history." At the same time, it has again been proven that there is a direct relationship between sales and public relations.
For downtown merchants throughout the nation, the biggest shopping days normally are the two following Thanksgiving Day. Resulting traffic jams are an irksome problem to the police and, in Philadelphia, it became customary for officers to refer to the post-Thanksgiving days as Black Friday and Black Saturday. Hardly a stimulus for good business, the problem was discussed by the merchants with their Deputy City Representative, Abe S. Rosen, one of the country's most experienced municipal PR executives. He recommended adoption of a positive approach which would convert Black Friday and Black Saturday to Big Friday and Big Saturday. The media cooperated in spreading the news of the beauty of Christmas-decorated downtown Philadelphia, the popularity of a "family-day outing" to the department stores during the Thanksgiving weekend, the increased parking facilities, and the use of additional police officers for guaranteeing a free flow of traffic ... Rosen reports that business over the weekend was so good that merchants are giving downtown Philadelphia "a starry-eyed new look."
—Public Relations News, Dec. 18, 1961, p. 2.

The origin of "Black Friday" among Philadelphia police officers of the early '60s is further reinforced by a 1994 article for The Philadelphia Inquirer by Joseph P. Barrett, who recounted his role in popularizing the expression when he worked as a reporter for The Philadelphia Bulletin. He credits the traffic cops, who had to work 12-hour shifts the day after Thanksgiving.

In 1959, the old Evening Bulletin assigned me to police administration, working out of City Hall. Nathan Kleger was the police reporter who covered Center City for the Bulletin.
In the early 1960s, Kleger and I put together a front-page story for Thanksgiving and we appropriated the police term "Black Friday" to describe the terrible traffic conditions.
Center City merchants complained loudly to Police Commissioner Albert N. Brown that drawing attention to traffic deterred customers from coming downtown. I was worried that maybe Kleger and I had made a mistake in using such a term, so I went to Chief Inspector Albert Trimmer to get him to verify it.
Trimmer, tongue in cheek, would say only that Black Friday was used to describe the Valentine's Day massacre of mobsters in Chicago.
The following year, Brown put out a press release describing the day as ''Big Friday." But Kleger and I held our ground, and once more said it was ''Black Friday." And of course we used it year after year.
—"This Friday Was Black with Traffic," Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 25, 1994

It's notable that both articles discuss how much Philadelphia merchants disliked the label "Black Friday" and tried to get people to use a more positive term: "Big Friday." That effort failed, of course, and "Black Friday" caught on, spreading to other cities in the 1970s and '80s. And instead of trying to replace "Black Friday" with "Big Friday," retailers and advertisers found a new way of ameliorating the name for the day: circulating the story that "Black Friday" is so called not because of the disastrous traffic conditions but because of the profits seen by stores.

According to Taylor-Blake, the story of businesses getting "back in the black" on Black Friday doesn't start appearing until the 1980s. So the "back in the black" explanation was clearly a way to rebrand Black Friday with more positive connotations. It's worth noting that all of the historical predecessors for the modern Black Friday were negative events. One early "Black Friday" was on Dec. 6, 1745, when news of the landing in Scotland of Charles Edward Stuart, pretender to the throne, was publicized in London. "Black Friday" was also used to describe financial panics of 1869 and 1873. Despite that history, and the experience of the poor Philadelphia traffic cops, the commercial propaganda about "Black Friday" being connected to "black ink" (profitability) has obscured the true origins of the term. As always, watch out for etymythology!

source: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wo...-black-friday/

[Jennasis]

Originally Posted by Bob NC

This nation is turning into a bunch of self-absorbed snowflakes.

I don't like shopping on Black Friday, let's do it a week earlier so I am happy.

I don't like my daughter working on Thanksgiving, let's start petitions or go on strike.

I don't like other people shopping on Thanksgiving, we need to stop that.

My cousin is serving dinner at 4:00 pm and I wanted to eat at 3:00, I'm going to stomp my feet and turn blue.

My coworker doesn't think the exact same way I do, that useless, waste of DNA.

I took a job with weird vacation rules and now they are having the audacity to follow those rules, the buttheads.

I've been complaining about Disney coffee for 27 years, but, they decided to offer better coffee without calling ME to approve their plans, how dare they.

Sheeeeeesh.....

Well, at least you got your digs in...and that's what matters most.

[Kathryn Merteuil]

Originally Posted by teacherforhi

Except many of the shoppers have the Friday after Thanksgiving off of work, not the Friday before. Who would be shopping?

That was my first thought too.

[kinntj]

No, they shouldn't move it. It makes sense to have the sales the day after Thanksgiving. I think people like the shops being open earlier because they turn up when the doors open or before.

I don't go out on Thanksgiving because it's tradition for us to stay home or travel to IL's to eat and watch football. Black Friday we plan on shopping online and possibly go out in the afternoon. We found that going out later, the stores are empty.

[Bob NC]

Originally Posted by Jennasis

Well, at least you got your digs in...and that's what matters most.

Not yet.

I haven't even touched the topic of volunteering in the community then waaaaahhh, waaaahhhhh, waaaaahhhhhhing because there is actual time consuming work involved.

There, digs over.

[NotUrsula]

Originally Posted by Bob NC

Not yet.

I haven't even touched the topic of volunteering in the community then waaaaahhh, waaaahhhhh, waaaaahhhhhhing because there is actual time consuming work involved.

There, digs over.

Yeah, well, that's a different topic entirely. I blame that one largely on mandatory service hours required by schools and clubs and criminal courts.

The goal is laudable, but it falls down in the execution, because people who don't really want to be there are usually not really all that helpful in the long run, and that is burdensome for the charities trying to get their mission accomplished.

[CurlyJo224]

No, greedy stores can just put it back to where it's always been.

[bookgirl]

I voted no, but not because it extends the shopping season. Just because I think that you wouldn't get near the shopping numbers doing it the week before. There are reasons to hit that day (number of people off work, number of people together for the holidays so easy to shop together, big kickoff event, etc). There are a lot of retailers who use that day for exactly what it was started for. Big sales to push them into the 'black' for the year.