I’ve lived through 60 Black Fridays, and I never knew it was a thing until the past 20 Years or so. And I’ve never taken part of it in the realm of fighting crowds to get good deals. Never woke up at ungodly hours to save money on Black Friday. But many people did this year. In fact, $107.3 billion was spent online shipping so far during this Black Friday season.
The Major Event We Call Black Friday
The first time the term Black Friday was used was September 24, 1869, and it didn’t refer to the Friday after Thanksgiving – it referred to the crash of the U.S. gold market. Nearly 100 years later, in the 1950s, Philadelphia police used the term to describe all the people shopping en masse on the day after Thanksgiving.
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Unsplash
In the late 1980s, it became a way for retailers to get people into their stores, making it an event to help stores go from being in the red, to being in the black. That tracks with more of what I remember.
That brings us to today. Not only am I aware of the holiday, I take part in providing great online Black Friday deals for readers of this website. There were so many this year, that $107.3 billion was spent. That makes me second-guess the panic of the economy.
The Numbers Adding Up to $107.3 Billion
In truth, that $107.3 billion that was spent online was not just on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. It was November 1 through November 29: nearly the entire month. This makes me wonder how they count what was spent? Only on items marked as a Black Friday sale? Only sale items? Or all items sold in that time?
We do know that that amount spent online includes “buy now, pay later” options. So maybe that accounts for the economy concerns. People are obviously deciding to finance their spending, whether on gifts or things they personally want or need. Count me out of facing maddening crowds or setting alarms to jump online early, just to pay for it for several months – or years. $7.6 billion will be paid later this year.
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Unsplash
Additionally, more than half of that spending took place on mobile devices. So $56.1 billion of that money spent online wasn’t people settling down in front of their computers. This was people jumping on their phones – or possibly tablets – to grab a great deal they saw on a site like Make Tech Easier.
Hopefully, all this “black” is truly saving companies and putting them in the red. On Black Friday alone, $10.8 billion in revenue came in. And we’re not even done. This data was reported over the weekend, before we even got to the next event: Cyber Monday.
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Unsplash
If you’re currently writing your holiday wishlist, or shopping to help others fulfill theirs, the biggest products this season are the Dyson Airwrap. Espresso machines, LEGO sets. Madden NFL 2025, and fitness trackers.
And all that is what Adobe forecasts will amount to a record $240.8 billion online during the 2024 holiday season. $211.7 billion was spent in 2022 and $222.1 billion in 2023. I will admit to spending a significant amount on gifts and for myself on Thanksgiving at Poshmark. Hopefully, I helped one of those personal sellers turn their Friday “black.”
If you want to do your part to reach that $240.8 billion dollars, beware of Black Friday phishing attacks while you’re shopping.
Image credit: Unsplash
Laura Tucker –
Staff Writer
Laura has spent more than 20 years writing news, reviews, and op-eds, with the majority of those years as an editor as well. She has exclusively used Apple products for the past 35 years. In addition to writing and editing at MTE, she also runs the site’s sponsored review program.
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