Black Friday

Global Shipping Delay Crisis Causes Retailers to Change “Black Friday” Traditions for 2021 Holiday Shoppers

By Julia Romano

“Black Friday” has historically referred to the day after Thanksgiving, when retailers offer a day full of special shopping deals and massive discounts.

As the official beginning of the holiday shopping season, the original Black Friday was a stock market catastrophe that took place on Friday, September 24th, 1869. On that day, after a period of aggressive speculation, the price of gold plummeted, and the markets crashed.

Some believe that the term, Black Friday, originated with the meaning of “black” as being profitable, which emerged from the practice of recording profits in black ink, and losses in red ink. The idea was that retail businesses would sell enough on this particular Friday to put themselves “in the black” for the rest of the year.

However, long before it started appearing in advertisements and commercials, the term was actually contrived by overworked Philadelphia police officers. In the 1950s, crowds of shoppers and visitors flooded the “City of Brotherly Love” the day after Thanksgiving. Not only did Philadelphia stores advertise major sales and the unveiling of holiday decorations on this day, but the city also held the Army-Navy football game on Saturday of the same weekend. Consequently, traffic cops were required to work 12-hour shifts to deal with the flocks of drivers and pedestrians, and they were not allowed to take the day off. Over time, the angry officers started to refer to this dreaded workday as “Black Friday.”

The term quickly gained popularity and spread to store employees who used “Black Friday” to describe the long lines and overall chaos they had to deal with on that day. In the mid-1990s, “Black Friday” swept the nation and started to appear in print and TV ad campaigns across the United States. During the 2000s, Black Friday was designated the official best and biggest shopping day of the year.

Consumers often shop on Black Friday for the hottest trending items, which have at times led to stampedes and violence in the absence of adequate security. One example was in 1983, on Black Friday, customers engaged in fistfights and stampedes in retail stores across the U.S. to get ahold of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, that year’s must-have toy, which was believed to be in short supply.

In the recent past, big-ticket items and top-selling brands of TVs, smart devices, and other electronics, have lured customers in with the hope that once inside, they will purchase higher-margin goods. There continue to be unfortunate stories at a handful of retail stores where some shoppers get overly emotional and resort to screaming at each other, and even physically fighting to take home a deal for a purchase of an item they may not normally be able to afford without breaking the bank.

In 2020, the global pandemic had a significant effect on Black Friday, as the retail industry was hit especially hard. In order to achieve some degree of holiday shopper sales’ success, retailers promoted sales as far back as October, and made “Black Friday” sale prices available via online shopping, and also, well in advance of the Thanksgiving holiday. The massive shopping crowds that have traditionally followed the day after Thanksgiving stayed home because of the pandemic and businesses across the country made

changes to adapt, causing the 2020 Black Friday to be different from any other. Many large retailers had to put into place advance plans to limit the number of customers entering their stores, as COVID-19 resurged in many communities around the country. The discount sales that are usually reserved for Black Friday were offered through the month to help discourage long lines.

In 2021, with COVID-19 waning, you would think that Black Friday would return to what it was prior to the pandemic, but that does not appear to be the expected outcome. For the last several months, there have been reports of what is being called a “shipping crisis,” resulting in a backup of cargo ships across the nation. There are many reasons that are believed to be contributing to the anticipated holiday shopping delays, including unprecedented inflation that is resulting in shortages of products of all types in most of the larger stores throughout the country. What this may mean for the holiday season, especially for the toy industry, is consumers’ inability to receive goods on time that are ordered online, and many may even find empty shelves at stores, including at some of the big retailers. In an attempt to bypass the shipping delays, some of the larger stores are renting their own cargo ships, but this is a very pricey alternative that will undoubtedly cause a significant increase in the cost of products that are already believed to have higher price tags, defeating the purpose of Black Friday sales.

The 2021 shipping crisis is a real problem that is expected to be felt by most holiday shoppers, putting a damper on the usual jolly holiday shopping experience. It is being driven by not only the pandemic, but even more so by a reduced workforce, consisting of much fewer people returning to work to fill jobs, drastically reducing the number of necessary company workers to fill all of the positions to ship products for retailers, without a significant delay.

To avoid the problem of shipping delays, altogether, it is highly recommended that you start your shopping now, if you have not yet done so already. This is most imperative this year, especially when ordering a hot toy item. Getting a jump on your holiday shopping has never been as important as it is in 2021, when there are so many unknowns about the availability of products you are seeking to purchase, as well as the question of the products you order being shipped to your home in time for Christmas Day gift giving.

Many stores have started earlier, being open on Thanksgiving Day and running beyond Friday. At the website blackfriday.com/deals, holiday shoppers are finding discounts as early as October, for those eager to get some deals that may not last until Black Friday.