The Rise and Fall of Black Friday

How Black Friday became a staple in American culture and how online advertising and social media deals are reinventing holiday shopping

REUTERS

Black Friday, the fourth Friday in November and the infamous day that immediately follows Thanksgiving, is not only the most eagerly-anticipated shopping day of the year, but historically, the official, frenzied beginning of the holiday-buying season. Although the physical takeover of stores in order to get the best deals and capture the best gift promotions pre-Christmas has been on a decline in recent years, holiday consumption in general is far from fading.

One reason for the physical decline of Black Friday is that holiday promotions now begin long before the day after Thanksgiving. With Christmas displays being seen as early as September and layaway promotions being announced around Labor Day, consumers aren’t as eager to rush stores for extra-special deals on Black Friday itself. In fact, consumers are now shopping for their holiday gifts on increasingly earlier dates. According to a report from RetailMeNot, the largest online coupon site in the U.S., “nearly 4 in 10 parents with children under the age of 18 (39%) are beginning their holiday shopping prior to November.” As consumers start looking to tackle their Christmas lists earlier, retailers are discounting even earlier, seeking to keep these early shoppers interested as customers.

Black Friday in it’s physical sense is also becoming increasingly irrelevant because of the recent, overwhelming sensation of internet shopping. Although online shopping is expected to continue soaring this holiday season with sales increases and smartphone-enabled shopping apps, “showrooming,” the term for inspecting merchandise in person in a store before purchasing it from an online competitor, will be at an all-time high, according to Brad Tuttle, a personal finance contributor for Time magazine. Shoppers are expected to check out and research items, such as electronics, in stores, but purchase them online the Monday after (a.k.a “Cyber Monday”). According to Tuttle, however, the reason why so many Americans are opting to shop online this year is because the economy is still in bad shape. It remains easier and faster to find the cheapest holiday deals online rather than physically shopping in stores. “Black Friday Season” is increasingly becoming the better time to find ultra low-priced “door busters” than the day immediately following Thanksgiving. Consumers may still be ravenously consuming during the holiday season but will do so on their own time, often from within the comforts of their own homes.

Although Cyber Monday has already broken shopping records this year, .comScore forecasts more record-breaking sales to come in the weeks ahead.

According to Adam Davidson in his New York Times Magazine article titled “When Too Many Flat-screens Are Never Enough,” Black Friday, and all of it’s many participating retailers, relies on a few simple retail strategies. “One method is to sell everything as cheaply as possible and magnify a tiny profit through volume,” writes Davidson. “Other stores mark down only a few high-profile items, even selling them at a loss, in hopes that customers will also throw a few full-priced items in their carts.” Regardless, remarks Davidson, “Black Friday is essentially a one-day economic stimulus plan and job-creation program.” Retailers will increase their circulation with billions of dollars that according to Davidson, would otherwise never be spent, as consumers continue to consume.

Shoppers at a representative big-box store opening at midnight on Black Friday, compared with a typical day in 2010, in 30-minute increments. Source: NY Times Magazine via ShopperTrak

Home of the largest shopping mall and some of the biggest department stores in the world, America produces shopping not only as an economic experience, but also as a cultural one. Our shopping centers, gifts, and holidays in themselves, are reflections of popular American culture. The retail madness that ensues on Black Friday and on all days after leading up to Christmas and the rest of the holiday season, follows the tenets of American consumer culture.

As history denotes, the alliance between consumer culture and the holidays emerged in the Middle Ages. According to Leigh Eric Schmidt, author of Consumer Rites: The Buying & Selling of American Holidays, wares were peddled in 15th Century churchyards as the confluence of people for church services and festivals became an ideal occasion for haggling and trade. Soon Medieval peddlers and retailers began to realize what future retailers would so eagerly discover and press upon our culture today: Holidays made for excellent commercial opportunities.

“The predilection for turning holy days into market days and for transforming places of pilgrimage into open-air marts has deep roots in popular culture,” writes Schmidt. Over the 18th and 19th centuries, more and more merchants discovered the power of holidays within an ever-increasing consumer culture. New Years Eve was the first holiday to be fully commercialized for merchandizing purposes. Soon after came Valentine’s Day which, according to Schmidt, was “virtually reinvented by stationers, booksellers, and printers in the 1840s and 1850s.” By 1900, the commercial promotion of Christmas was pervasively commonplace. Holiday symbols were used to both dramatize and ritualize shopping in every possible commercial aspect. In the 1920’s Macy’s and Gimbel’s, two of the most prominent department stores of the time, added extravagant Thanksgiving Day parades to the plethora of Christmas culture they were already providing. These grand parades helped to delineate and lengthen the commercial Christmas season.

The line outside a Best Buy in Columbus, Ohio shortly after midnight on Black Friday of this year. Source: Greg Sailor for The New York Times

Without a doubt, shopping, and more specifically holiday shopping, has become a strong focus of American culture. According to Sharon Zukin in her book Point of Purchase: How Shopping Changed American Culture, people utilize shopping as a way to create value in their lives and express themselves. We feel good when we buy and satisfy our cravings for enjoyment. When we associate emotional satisfaction with obtainment, we not only feel wealthy, but also healthy. As part of the American “cult” of consumption, we have been socialized to buy goods in exchange for our “earned” money and have been taught to measure ourselves by our accumulated economic wealth. Spending our wealth on holiday gifts only promotes our society’s acceptance of capitalism’s value-laden morals. American society was founded on consumption and we as American citizens, are products of our culture.

Certainly Black Friday and the frenzied holiday-shopping season that follows is a pervasive expression of nationwide, economic stimulus, but it is also a much larger expression of rampant consumerism in our society. Hysterical holiday shopping speaks to our nature as American citizens and our expansive culture of consumption. Since our economy remains low, perhaps it is time to question our system of buying our way out of problems. Is this system not irrational and undignified? Perhaps we need to find a new system that fulfills our perceived desires and needs without slowly dismantling the structure itself. In order to step away from our pervasive and illogical American culture of consumption, we need to redistribute our values, both economically and personally. Whether we derive satisfaction from Christmas culture and Black Friday shopping or from some other form of enjoyment, let it be said that we have the power as human beings to dictate the terms of our own society happiness.