Black Friday...The Analysis

The day after Thanksgiving. Twenty years ago it was probably nothing more than a casual, relaxing day to spend time with family and eat leftover turkey. Over the course of the last few decades, this day has become a phenomenon for thousands of avid shoppers.

I am convinced that the day after Thanksgiving, called Black Friday, has seriously become a sport for many people. One common tradition on Thanksgiving is to look in the ads and newspaper for sales and coupons that start extremely early the next morning. Many people probably don't even want to buy the product but because it's on sale, they will be happy to spend their money. This of course is the purpose of these ads from places such as Target, Best Buy and Sears. It seems to be a competition between stores of who can come up with the best Black Friday deals.

I remember a few years ago that the stores would open their doors around 4 or 5 in the morning with people standing in line to insure access to the best deals. I thought this was ridiculous at the time even though the idea of waking up super early to go shopping sounded kind of fun. Now the early in the morning twist is on its way out. Stories are opening at midnight some even at 10 pm, such as Walmart on Thanksgiving night. This defeats the whole purpose of waking up early to go shopping! Now all your doing is staying up really late to go shopping. In my opinion, I don't think that's quite as exciting and different.

Black Friday isn't just great for crazy shoppers and the businesses themselves, but the media also benefits. There are always new deals to announce and unheard of actions taking place on this day, in which the media is first to report. This year I heard everything from camping out for 24 hours in a parking lot, to pepper spray attacks, reported gun shots and stealing. That is just uncalled for and out of hand, people use your brain!

I have to say I have never ventured out in the middle of the night to partake in this annual craze. I am sure that most people who do have some great stories though. Last week when I went to the mall (at 1 pm) about 10 ladies had on matching Black Friday t-shirts. This seemed a bit over the top to me but that's something fun and not stupid to do! For the most part I do think that Black Friday is for the better, it gets people together, having fun and getting ready for Christmas!