So What is Black Friday & Where did it Come From?

Where Did Black Friday Come from?

Black Friday is a day that originated from the US as the largest day of discounts and deals following thanksgiving celebrations. The name stems from an old book keeping practice where profits were recorded in black. The name therefore signifies a day for companies to expect good sales and to attract new customers. It can also be regarded as the beginning of the holiday shopping period.

The UK Frenzy 

Black Friday only became popular in the UK when amazon introduced this day of promotion, the sale was so successful that customers were left disappointed due to the popular products selling fast. Other UK retailers saw this as an opportunity to raise their profits and began to celebrate with their own discounts. The day has such a large anticipation that shops are met with disorderly behaviour by customers' desperation.

Much like everything, Covid-19 has and will continue to change the way we as consumers shop.  A day that once saw customers arriving hours before opening to queue, has moved online due the accessibility of the internet and lockdown restrictions. Online shopping has always been a popular way to shop and even without Covid, many brick and mortar stores were already having to close. In fact majority of  retailers' sales come from mobile shopping. 

The Dark Side of Black Friday

Many money saving experts speculate that Black Friday sales can sometimes be a con to get consumers to believe they're getting an amazing deal in order to purchase. Therefore it is wise to have your eye on the price of the item you are hoping to grab in the sale period, to make sure the price does drop to your expectations.

The Black Friday frenzy has been labelled as a climate menace, in the UK alone black Friday home deliveries churns out 429,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. With online transactions increasing more and more each year, the present year stands as the most polluting one. Research conveys that online deliveries to houses have a higher greenhouse gas footprint than in store shopping. However, the largest contributor to negatively impacting the planet are the life cycle of the products themselves. In fact 80% of Black Friday purchases are thrown away after one use. However, due to the knowledge that over consumption is ruining our planet, more consumers are purchasing less material goods and moving away from excessive consumption. Therefore our largest piece of advice during the Black Friday sales is that you reflect on whether it is something you will really get use out of. 

#ShopEthicalInstead

The shop ethical instead hashtag is a campaign led by ethical hour to encourage consumers to shop ethically and think about the impact that their purchase will have on the environment. The campaign aims to get more small local businesses financially afloat. Therefore the buy nothing day supports this campaign since it encourages consumers to choose to opt out of the sales as a symbolic statement to ending over consumption and promoting others to not buy into these unethical businesses.

What we Celebrate

Here at Dearest Fannie we celebrate small business Saturday which represents a day to shop locally and support small businesses like ourselves. We as a team represent sustainable living and are therefore choosing to boycott Black Friday and get involved in Small Business Saturday. We urge you to challenge yourself in joining us in Small Business Saturday this year.

We would love to know which small business you will be supporting and if you're joining us in boycotting black Friday, comment below.