Black Friday is upon us once again, seeing retailers across the country offer shoppers massive savings on everyday products.
Taking place in November each year, the day is commonly associated with massive sales ahead of the festive period.
With shoppers across the country getting ready to snag some bargains this week, here is the meaning behind the term 'Black Friday'.
What is Black Friday and is it a British tradition?
Black Friday is the colloquial term used for the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States of America.
This traditionally marks the start of the Christmas shopping season with retailers across the globe offering slashed prices for products.
This tradition originates from America but has quickly grown in popularity in the United Kingdom over the last decade.
Where does the term 'Black Friday' come from and what does it mean?
According to NBC News, the term 'Black Friday' originally had no connection to shopping with most connoting it with negative events.
Historian Nancy Koehn said that it first described the financial panic of 1869 when the price of gold was driven up so much that a market crash was caused.
The first time the term Black Friday was used for shopping the day after Thanksgiving was in the 1950s when police coined the term.
This happened after police in Philidelphia complained about the influx of people coming into the city to shop the day after Thanksgiving.
From there on, the term was used to describe shopping despite initial protests by retailers who attempted to make the name 'Big Friday' catch on.
The term grew popular in the 1970s and 1980s as retailers attempted to compete with one another with their various sales.
Black Friday takes place on Friday, November 24 in 2023 with some sales already having been listed by retailers.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here