The day after Thanksgiving hasn’t always been about midnight crowds and big sales. Black Friday, as we know it, is a story full of financial crashes, clever marketing, and cultural changes. From its messy beginnings to becoming a global shopping event, Black Friday shows not just how we shop but how retailers have learned to respond to what drives people.
The term “Black Friday” initially had nothing to do with shopping. It was first used in 1869 during a financial crash caused by Wall Street speculators Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, who tried to corner the gold market. Decades later, in 1950s Philadelphia, the term resurfaced in a different context. The day after Thanksgiving brought hordes of suburban shoppers and football fans to the city, creating traffic jams, overworked police officers, and a spike in shoplifting. Local merchants hated the negative connotation and even tried to rebrand it as “Big Friday,” but the original name stuck.
By the 1980s, retailers found a way to turn this negative narrative into a positive one. They began promoting Black Friday as the day their annual accounts shifted “from red to black,” symbolising profits instead of losses. The idea gained traction, and by the 1990s, stores started opening early to draw crowds eager for discounts, turning Black Friday into the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season.
Image Credit: CNBC
The Digital Shift
The internet didn’t just amplify Black Friday; it reinvented it. In the early 2000s, the rise of e-commerce brought a new dimension to the event. Online retailers noticed a surge in transactions the Monday after Thanksgiving, leading to the creation of "Cyber Monday." Over time, the lines between Black Friday and Cyber Monday blurred, with deals starting weeks in advance and stretching across platforms.
Digital shopping enabled a new scale of participation. By 2023, Americans were spending nearly $9 billion online and over 60% of Black Friday purchases were made on smartphones. Countdown timers, dynamic pricing algorithms, and gamified shopping interfaces made the frenzy accessible to anyone with an internet connection. No longer confined to physical stores, Black Friday became a global phenomenon, with countries like the UK, India, and Brazil tailoring the concept to local markets.
The Psychology Behind:
What makes Black Friday so compelling isn’t just the discounts—it’s the psychology behind the event. The introduction of flash sales brought an entirely new dimension to the shopping experience. Combining limited timeframes, scarcity, and competition, these sales tap directly into human impulses.
“In the heat of the moment, resisting a flash sale is difficult because it combines scarcity with competition,”
says Dr. Erica Carranza, a social psychologist. This scarcity effect creates a sense of urgency, while the competitive element turns shopping into a high-stakes game.
For businesses, Black Friday has evolved from a single-day event to a season-long strategy. Retailers now launch promotions weeks in advance, creating sustained engagement with consumers. However, for us consumers, these sales redefine how we think about value. A product’s worth isn’t solely tied to its price or utility—it’s about how quickly you can grab it and the thrill of “winning” against other shoppers. The ticking clock and dwindling stock fuel adrenaline, making purchases feel like achievements rather than transactions. This reflects what Tversky and Kahneman described as the emotional framing of decisions, where urgency and scarcity tilt choices away from rational deliberation (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981).
It prompts us to ask: Are we buying for need or the thrill of the chase? As shopping becomes more about emotional highs than rational choices, what does this mean for our financial habits in an increasingly tempting world?
Here's advice from UK Behavioural Insights Team while researchers work this out: https://www.bi.team/ blogs/5-traps-to-avoid-on-black-friday/
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