As Thanksgiving break approached, you would hear students exchanging their Black Friday plans while walking through the Hooper Student Center. Your numerous filled shopping carts were ready to arrive at your door. Excited, you could not suppress your eagerness to finally press the check-out button after picking every single on-sale product. It is the spirit of Black Friday to shop and support all the retailers.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is a day full of shopping. In the past, retailers recorded their profitability in their books using black ink for the profits and red ink for the losses. Black Friday is a business strategy to go from ‘being in the red’ to ‘being in the black’ for the rest of the year.

In the 1950s, as people started celebrating Thanksgiving, numerous people rushed into the City of Brotherly Love to buy gifts and decorations. Standing on the streets, one would see cars and pedestrians sticking side by side. It was impossible to move until the police rushed in to conduct traffic. Police complaints referred to this chaotic holiday as “Black Friday,” another source of this stressful day’s name.

According to the National Retail Federation, an estimated 186.4 million consumers took advantage of the Black Friday discounts during the Thanksgiving weekend, spending a total of more than $800 billion on Black Friday (including in-store shopping and online shopping). In context, this statistic looks like more than half of America’s population each buying more than $4000 over four days.

Traditionally, Black Friday has been an in-store shopping event. As technology developed, the location for shopping shifted from in-store to online. Yet, some people believe that despite the convenience of online shopping, in-store shopping offers customers an opportunity to receive the purchased product immediately and to see and try the product before buying.

Even with the presence of new protocols and updates with the COVID-19 pandemic, a survey on consumers’ Black Friday activities that the National Retail Federation did shows around 55% of people claimed that they would still shop in-store during Black Friday.

“I bought a pair of shoes that I need during Black Friday because it is cheaper during that day,” Alan Wang (‘24) said. “The new COVID-19 updates did not affect my plans. I bought them in stores because I like to try things on and the feeling of holding bags full of goods after shopping.”

On the other hand, some people will argue shopping online is more convenient. This year, compared to the previous year, 44% more consumers shopped exclusively online.

“I bought some clothes and shoes this year online,” Yuki Layman (‘25) said. “For me, during the Thanksgiving break, it is a lot easier to buy online than actually spend time to go out, and I can just do it in a much shorter period of time.”

What are the other reasons why people did not shop in-store?

The number of customers in the store and the concerns with the COVID-19 pandemic prevented people from shopping in-store. People did not like the busyness and crowdedness of stores and were afraid of getting infected with the COVID-19 virus because of how many interpersonal interactions in-store shopping requires.

“There are just too many people in stores, so I did not buy anything on Black Friday,” Terrence Wu (‘23) said.

Nevertheless, some people decided not to take part because they did not have the urge to buy anything and what they want were not on sale.

“I never participate in Black Friday because most of the goods are not on sale on Black Friday, and some stores put promotions on their unpopular goods to boost sales,” Hannah Hao (‘24) said. “If people really want something, they will not wait for Black Friday to get them; instead, they will want to get them immediately, so the popular things never get promotion on Black Friday.”

For the past year, many retailers, especially local businesses, had to permanently close their stores because they could not gain any profit. They choose to close down stores because of the customers that stayed home due to safety concerns and the lockdown.

They had no other way because many people stayed home during the COVID-19 pandemic to stay safe and due to lockdowns, and if they continued to open, they still had to pay for the workers and all other necessities on top of the one profit. To the others who survived but still suffered from pandemic restrictions, Black Friday is a time for them to revive.

No matter the method you are taking part in, you are helping the business to succeed. Next year, even if you do not have the urge to buy anything, check out some stores and see what surprises you can find. If you are buying products online, just in few days after the click of a button, they will arrive at Hooper Student Center and be ready for you to pick them up.