Black Friday

What Does Black Friday Mean?

Black Friday refers to the day after Thanksgiving in the United States, which traditionally marks the first day of the Christmas shopping season and is typically the top shopping day of the year. Although Black Friday generally refers to shopping in brick-and-mortar retailers, this is also a strong day for online retailers. Black Friday is followed by Cyber Monday, which is a peak day for online shopping.

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Techopedia Explains Black Friday

On Black Friday, most retailers open quite early and provide discount sales to kick off the shopping season. This day is just like the Boxing Day sales in numerous Commonwealth countries. Black Friday is not really a holiday; however, many organizations offer day-off for their employees thereby raising the volume of potential shoppers.

In November 2010, ComScore, an agency that measures digital business analytics, recorded a 9 percent increase in online shopping from the year before. Online purchases totaled $648 million on Black Friday in 2010, up from $595 million in 2009. The 2010 Black Friday online purchases resulted in the highest amount of online shopping purchases in U.S. history. According to ComScore, this increase was driven by the increasing number of people who prefer to shop in the comfort of their own homes, coupled with an economic resurgence.

In addition, the number of visitors to coupon websites increased by 4 percent, which was led by BlackFriday.com.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…