Black Friday And Its Effect On America

Andrew Leonard's "Black Friday: Consumerism Minus Civilization" argues that the Black Friday shopping spree has begun to get out of hand in the previous years. Leonard explains that consumerism is a great thing for America, but showing Americans that it is okay to go crazy when shopping for deals is not the way to approach the buying markets. He mentions a Target advertisement and states that, "The Crazy Target Lady is not a joke. Watch her cannibalize her gingerbread man, or strategize her reverse psychology shopping techniques... she is America. She might be a lunatic, but it's a culturally approved lunacy" (Leonard 166). The author emphasizes how Americans embrace the acts of the target lady as funny and amusing, but during Black Friday shopping, some shoppers will take the night to the extreme like the advertisement does. He does remind us that there is light at the end of the tunnel, by reporting how shoppers are seeing the problems with the night of crazy shopping. I agree with Leonard that there are problems with Black Friday ads, and that consumers are realizing Black Friday shopping is taking away from Thanksgiving.

In his argument, Leonard guessed that Black Friday shopping is degrading to America as a whole. Throughout the article, he states that people should avoid large sprees of retail spending “For the sake of the U.S. economy” (Leonard 165); he insists that voluntarily overbuying causes the country to

Black Friday is the following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Black Friday is not an official holiday, but many workers have the day off as part of the Thanksgiving holiday, this increases the number of potential shoppers. Retailers often decorate for the Christmas and holiday season weeks beforehand. Many retailers open extremely early, with most of the retailers typically opening at 5 A.M. or even earlier. Retailers use Black Friday to kick off the holiday season to use much of their products to go from the red to the black.

Like our website, none of our competing Black Friday sites have implemented any changes on their sites to remain compliant. I feel though that it is at minimum worth our effort to understand what it would take to become compliant, and have an action

The 20th century was a time of enormous changes in American life. The history of the United States from 1918 through 1945 was World War I era, the Great Depression, and World War II.

As Black Friday has progressed along with retailors marketing their products and their sales, it has become a national day of shopping to get the best deals. Americans mainly go shopping on this day to get huge deals for Christmas presents. Stores have even taken this great opportunity to open their establishments for 24 hours. Just last year, consumers spent a whopping $57,400,000,000 with each consumer individually spending $410 on average. The #1 retailor customers purchased from and camped out at was Best Buy. All of the statistics are based on 2013 and this year was projected to be an 11% increase.

Thanksgiving traditions don't end on Thanksgiving Day. In the 1950s, the day after Thanksgiving was called Black Friday by factory managers because so many workers called in sick and the Philadelphia Police Department took to calling the day Black Friday to describe the traffic jams, crowds and shoplifters during the start of the holiday shopping season. Black Friday signals the start of the holiday shopping season, but it may be a tradition that's continuing to evolve as stores vie to be the earliest to open Thanksgiving Day.

Thanksgiving day is a time for shopping. Black friday shoppers are dwindling, and even if they weren’t, having sales on Thanksgiving could give us a good boost. Even though people may have less time on their holiday to celebrate, it should be allowed because producers and consumers will both benefit and it will boost our economy.

Black Friday is a day when people shop. Thanksgiving is a day for being with family. I believe that these two shouldn’t mix. Some people say that they would lose customers to other stores. In reality, many stores don’t open on Thanksgiving, so you would not be losing anything to them. Also, workers need family time.

Greed is among us and within Americans all the time, but one night a year it comes out in the worst way possible… Black Friday shopping. Black Friday happens every year the day after Thanksgiving, where stores put big sales on their products and open their doors early in the morning waiting for the chaos to commence. During the time of the sales people become greedy and crazy and are willing to do almost anything just to try and save a couple of dollars. Every year on the news people hear about all of the injuries and even deaths that take place during Black Friday. During this time greed gets the best of a lot of people, and you can see images of people diving on top of each other like they are objects just to get a good deal. These people have just come from Thanksgiving where they talk about how they are thankful for everything that they have, but then a couple of hours later they become crazy trying to get more stuff. In the TV episode Black Friday from the TV show Superstore they are able to portray what happens during the early mornings of Black Friday. Within the episode they are really able to portray how greed gets the best of us and how crazy people can really become just trying to get good deals on this terrible night.

After weighing the trade-offs, REI made the decision to shut down for one day and encourage everyone to join the company and its employees in spending this day enjoying the outdoors. I whole-heartedly agree with REI’s decision to close its stores on Black Friday, and believe it is the right one. REI’s CEO has made it clear this decision is not a financially self-serving act, so while the financial impact most certainly was taken into consideration when making the decision to close, it was not the main priority. Although REI may suffer financially in the short run, the potential long term increase in sales and increased brand loyalty may make up for the loss of sales on this popular shopping day. With all of the attention this decision has received in the media and news outlets, REI is distinguishing itself from other retailers and winning over both its existing and many new consumers with this bold move, which may lead to a significant increase in sales both prior to and following Black

The biggest shopping day of the year is known as “Black Friday”. This is when loads of people all around the country gather around to shop store sales everywhere before Christmas time settles in. “Stores began to use the term in the 1970s because the day after Thanksgiving marked the start of the profitable holiday shopping season…” (Zillman). According to Amanda Nicholson this term may go back even earlier into the 1960s. Black Friday was how police officers described the day after Thanksgiving because residents from the city and near suburbs marched the stores of Philadelphia in search of gifts for the holidays (Zillman). The sale has since then tragically morphed from the early first development, changing ever-so drastically. Every year stores open earlier practically flipping the bird to Thanksgiving in a way that is detrimental to history. Black Friday should be held only on its original specified date of the Friday after Thanksgiving so that it does not interfere in any way with the holiday gatherings because it takes employees away from their families and friends diminishing the value of Thanksgiving as a whole.

Over the past few years, Black Friday sales across the nation have started earlier and earlier. These sales can potentially cut into what is more important: Thanksgiving. Black Friday sales started as early as 6pm in 2015. Will these sales start earlier next year? What about in a few years? This shopping frenzy is slowly replacing Thanksgiving traditions. All together, companies should be required to start at or later than 12am. Let Thanksgiving have its own day to celebrate with families and friends. Black Friday sales that start later have more benefits for both retailers and shoppers.

Worse off, the majority of Black Friday retailers have adopted the routine of locking entrances until the exact minute of opening time. Mingled with insufficient staffing and crowd organization, shoppers are primed to uncontrollably charge into stores as soon as the doors open. Once one person begins running, everyone follows. The concept of social proof states, “if somebody else is in a hurry, there must be some urgency, so I should hurry, too,” (McGraw, 2015). Once everyone is running toward the same destination, the situation turns bad quickly. The majority of mob calamities are associated with “crazes,” the occurrence of everyone rushing toward the same thing, that they all

People may get caught up in the excitement of the day, and that can help them to spend even more money. While waiting in line, customers at the front of the line seem to be excited and happy. However, at the end of the line, customers appear to be more frustrated and anxious. Some consumers plan their Black Friday shopping trips weeks in advance. There are many websites available for people to view Black Friday advertisements online, before they are supposed to be released to the public. Walmart has tried year after year for the advertisements not to be leaked, but they usually end up on these websites before they are supposed to (4 Years Strong: Walmart Sends Another Cease & Desist, 2011). Stores may not want to have their advertisements released early for a couple of reasons. First, consumers having the ability to research products and having too much time to explore all of their options may mean that consumers will not make as many spontaneous purchases on Black Friday. They also do not want to have their competition see their deals, and then have them beat their prices. Having the advertisements earlier though means consumers are able to plan what stores they want to go to, which may lead to less chaos on the actual day. People are motivated by saving money on Black Friday. Some consumers may even see it as a competition. For some, because there is only a limited selection available for many of the items that are