The history of Black Friday

Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving and is one of the major shopping days of the year in the United States from anywhere between 23 and 29 November.

South Africa celebrated Black Friday on Friday, 25 November and traffic and overcrowding came into play at the Secunda Mall during the day.

Long queues and traffic, uncommon for the area, were the order of the day.

Why was Black Friday invented and where did it originate?

In the 1960s, Black Friday came to be known as the beginning of buying Christmas gifts for the holiday season.

The term black refers to the stores moving away from red where red was seen as a loss and black seen as a profit for companies.

In the 1960s, the police in Philadelphia who witnessed the overcrowded streets filled with pedestrians and motorists, called it Black Friday.

When looking at Black Friday from a non-retail perspective, it is also seen as the period when there was a financial crisis in 1869.

The huge plummet of stock markets came into play which was set off by gold spectators who wanted to corner the gold market.

It was unsuccessful and caused the market to collapse and stocks to plummet.

Retailers saw the opportunity to draw big crowds with reduced prices as Black Friday became the day to shop.

Retailers post all there Black Friday specials online to draw crowds to shop online and also for customers to come to the shop.