Reuter
B1 Economics
13 November 2018
Black Friday Weekend
Black Friday is known as the busiest and most important shopping day for retailers and stores, with the weekend extending to the Monday after Thanksgiving. Black Friday marks the beginning of the United States Christmas shopping season with major sales and promotional events at most retailers. In 2016, approximately 174 million people in America went shopping at stores throughout the five day weekend.
| Year | Spent per Shopper | Total Spent | Percent Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | N.A. | $416.4 billion | 2.1% |
| 2003 | N.A. | $437.6 billion | 5.1% |
| 2004 | N.A. | $467.2 billion | 6.8% |
| 2005 | $734.69 | $496.2 billion | 6.2% |
| 2006 | $750.70 | $512.6 billion | 3.2% |
| 2007 | $755.13 | $525.9 billion | 2.7% |
| 2008 | $694.19 | $501.7 billion | -4.6% |
| 2009 | $681.83 | $503.2 billion | 0.2% |
| 2010 | $718.98 | $529.4 billion | 5.2% |
| 2011 | $740.57 | $553.8 billion | 4.6% |
| 2012 | $752.24 | $568.7 billion | 2.6% |
| 2013 | $767.24 | $584.1 billion | 2.9% |
| 2014 | $802.45 | $608.0 billion | 5.0% |
| 2015 | $805.65 | $626.1 billion | 3.2% |
| 2016 | $935.58 | $655.8 billion | 3.6% |
| 2017 | $967.13 | $682.0 billion | 4.0% |
| 2018 | $1,007.24 | $717.5 billion | 4.3% |
As stated before, Black Friday is the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and therefore has big promotions and sales in which retailer’s lower prices on products and mass marketing to consumers about large sales and promotions that going on. This results in more people purchasing gifts and other products. Black Friday is a good example of the law of demand where the prices go down and in exchange people are more willing to purchase items and even more of those certain items.
People rush to stores with the expectations that they will be saving a large amount of money on about everything they intend on purchasing. The economy is positively impacted by Black Friday Weekend, solely due to all retailers being positively impacted, by an increase in consumer purchased caused by the lowering of prices.
Works Cited
Amadeo, Kimberly. “How Much Do Americans Spend on Black Friday?” The Balance Small Business, The Balance, www.thebalance.com/what-is-black-friday-3305710.
“Black Friday (Shopping).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Nov. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(shopping).
“Black Friday Statistics and Trends.” Fundivo, www.fundivo.com/stats/black-friday-statistics/#.
“How Does Black Friday Work?” Economics Stack Exchange, economics.stackexchange.com/questions/9531/how-does-black-friday-work.
Mott, Nathaniel. “Here's How Much Money Amazon Will Probably Make on Black Friday.” Inverse, Inverse, 3 July 2018, www.inverse.com/article/23995-how-much-money-amazon-black-friday-2016?refresh=2.
“The Trouble With Black Friday.” NPR, NPR, 16 Nov. 2011, www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/11/16/142386652/the-trouble-with-black-friday.
Black Friday is probably the biggest shopping day in the year, but it’s changed a bit due to online shopping. Online shopping is very popular now, and for the past few years, it’s what a lot of people do. They typically have also started their sales earlier than Black Friday. I wonder if this “new” way of shopping could affect Black Friday in the future.
ReplyDeleteI really like all the facts you put into this with the chart you can see the amount people purchase go up every year because of new things that came out. also with that that means more people are shopping so like you said the retailers would have a tougher time because of all the deals that are going down. With that all using evidence and saying what this does for stores I will say you did a good job on your piece
ReplyDeleteYou made a lot of valid arguments, but truthfully I believe that as the future comes around our technology will become more and more advanced, so people won’t want to go to the store to make there black Friday purchases, they will just wait for Cyber Monday to come and they will make all there purchases then. So really as the future comes around black friday will slowly disappear.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest reason that so many people shop during Black Friday and Cyber Monday is the large sales that are going on at almost every story. As we learned, demand for a product increases as the price of the product decreases, so more people are willing to buy more products because the price has been discounted. Retailers use advertisements leading up to Black Friday so that they can persuade the viewer into believing they need the items that are going on sale. The retailers also continue to profit because once they lure consumers into the store with lower prices, it is likely that the customers will also buy products that aren’t as largely discounted.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to black Friday every year and it is a tradtion in my family to go. I can attest to the amount of money consumers spend throughout the time between Black Friday and Christmas because I work retail. The better the sale, the more the consumer will buy. It allows retailers and companies to get rid of a majority of their products in order to replace them with new, trending items. Black Friday is great for the economy, consumers, and producers.
ReplyDeleteWhile I enjoy and participate in black friday. I am really annoyed with these companies trying to maximize their profits by opening on thanksgiving evening. In order for each company to get a competitive advantage they would want to be open as much as possible to earn higher profits. But by doing this it is turning thanksgiving, which used to be a full day to enjoy with your family, to half the family leaving at 5pm to go and get a good spot in line. Being open on Thanksgiving is another example of business trying to take advantage of Black Friday to boost their profits.
ReplyDeleteI personally am not a black Friday shopper, as I would much rather get the same deals on Cyber Monday without all of the additional chaos that is present on black Friday. However, I found it extremely interesting in your article that you said this ONE day accounts for 1/4 of retailer's annual sales. Days like these are very effective for retailers that have both identical and/or differentiated products with lots of competitors in order to separate themselves from the competition with different types of discounts. Companies that are monopolies for example can take advantage of a day like black Friday, but it may not be as effective as those with lots of competitors such as perfect competition or monopolistic competition to stand out from other retailers.
ReplyDelete