When is Black Friday? What does it mean? A few interesting facts.

The countdown has begun. There is not much time left until Black Friday. It is a special day for sellers and buyers, but as usual it will stretch over several days. And although this time the discounts are lower than in previous years, a huge number of Poles are sharpening their teeth for shopping - whether in stationary stores or online.

When is Black Friday?

In 2022, Black Friday, also known as Black Friday, falls on November 25th. In the previous 2021, Black Friday fell on November 26th.

Great excitement.

Early morning. A huge crowd is gathering in front of the shopping mall. "3...2...1..." - comes from the speakers. Finally, the doors open and a river of customers flows into the interior. Most of them run, someone falls, someone grabs their neighbor's jacket, this one and that one work their elbows hard. The breakthrough - now we see people loaded with boxes and huge queues at the cash registers.

Who of us has not seen the reports of shopping madness that Americans experience on Black Friday? Of course, it is difficult to build a credible picture of the world from such snapshots. They are like individual raisins picked out of a large sheet of cake. Nevertheless, they always make an impression. Similarly, the counter of sale victims, updated every year on the website www.blackfridaydeathcount.com

Only in the last fifteen years, fourteen people have died during the Black Friday sales across the ocean, and another 117 have been injured.

Causes: stabbing, fighting, spraying pepper spray, heart attack, trampling by a crowd. Last year, in one of the markets somewhere in northern California, two men reached for pistols. Both ended up in the hospital. When the store shelves are bent under goods discounted by 70, 80 percent, some people simply lose their heads...

In Poland, it is impossible to count on such large discounts. Black Friday also does not cause similar emotions. And yet... the sale holiday, like Halloween or Valentine's Day, has probably become a permanent part of our calendar and is becoming more and more entrenched in it.

What does Black Friday mean and where does the name come from?

Little is known about the beginnings of Black Friday. The name itself remains a mystery. Where does the adjective "black" come from? According to one theory, it is related to accounting records. In the old days, sellers' losses were recorded in red, and profits - in black. And during the sale, they earned a lot.

Other hypotheses do not inspire such optimism. It is not excluded that the term Black Friday comes from police slang. On that day, law enforcement officers had a lot of work to do. Thefts multiplied in stores, fights broke out in front of stores. It is also possible that American employers were the first to talk about "black" Friday. This was a reaction to the mass medical leave sent to offices, offices and factories. People did not want to sit at desks or machines when stores tempted with discounts.

An American on leave, a seller counts profits.

One thing is certain: since ancient times, on the first Friday after Thanksgiving, sellers have organized sales, thus opening the pre-Christmas shopping season. The turnover of shops and shopping galleries increased year by year. In 2019, it reached a record level of 18.5 billion dollars across the ocean, and according to Adobe Analitycs statistics, 40 percent of this money was spent in online stores. Last year, the number of people shopping online increased even more. This is also a constant trend that the market has already reacted to in its own way.

When is Cyber Monday?

In addition to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, a discount Monday in which discounts should be sought primarily in online stores, has been entered into the consumer calendar. Cyber Monday in 2022 falls on November 28th. Last year 2021 fell on November 29th.

Black Friday in Poland.

The tradition of black Fridays came to Poland six years ago, and customers quickly bought it, although, as it was said, our stores are still far from those American ones. At the end of last year, Delloite took a closer look at almost 400 products offered by online stores. As it turned out, the prices of slightly more than half did not fall at all, and the average value of discounts oscillated around... 3.4 percent.