Thunderbolt Digital is an online marketing agency Surrey dedicated to providing you with the best online marketing service possible. With Black Friday fast approaching, we have been curious as to where it came from, why it’s no longer a one-day event and why we go crazy for it. Here’s what we found…
Originally, “Black Friday” was used to refer to a stock market crash in the 1800s, when Jay Gould and James Fisk attempted to corner the gold market. The government attempted to correct the distortion by flooding the market with gold, causing a massive crash that became known as Black Friday. The furthest back “Black Friday” has been known to refer to the huge sales that took place the day after Thanksgiving in America was in Philadelphia, when police used the term in frustration at the massive hoards of people in the streets. However the term remained relatively unique to Philadelphia all the way up until the 1990s, when it became a national event in America, and then eventually worldwide in 2001. As a leading marketing agency Surrey, we are keen to see how this has affected marketing trends since…
Black Friday is essentially a huge marketing campaign, and it works. This year, it falls on the 25th of November, however the “Black Friday sales” normally start a week before and continue for a week after. This break in tradition happened over a period of time, and can be narrowed down to three main reasons: retailers can better cope with the demand, less staffing issues and less chance of online shopping websites crashing.
Black Friday gets bigger every year, as retailers compete with each other to have the lowest price, however not all sales are a bargain. It has been speculated that only 30% of Black Friday sales actually have lower price tags than in the weeks leading up to November. This is a shocking statistic, yet shoppers are still drawn in by the big red “sale” banner, which is where clever marketing really comes into it’s own.