Black Friday
The phenomenon of Black Friday
Bustling city streets, hour-long lines, and retail store chaos: only one scenario explains the commonality between these situations, shopping on Black Friday. For half a century Black Friday has become an unofficial retail holiday in the United States. It is a day that offers incredible discounts and killer deals, and most notoriously, it brings a frenzy of crazed shoppers to local retailers looking to save on purchases. Marketing strategies, paired with consumers’ need to locate the best deals on Christmas gifts has led to Black Friday being celebrated as a consumption ritual comparable in importance to Thanksgiving Day. (Thomas and Peters, 2011) How has Black Friday become the largest retail sales day of the year? What is it that drives people to artificially induced hyper consumption, almost like an annual ritual? Many scientist and psychologists have many different theories and conclusions of why Black Friday has become the biggest shopping day of the year. In this paper, I will take your through the research and conclusions that many psychologists have produced and the advantages and disadvantages of Black Friday.
Dr. Stephanie Sarkis, Ph.D. explored the work of Jane Boyd Thomas and Cara Peters, professors at South Carolina's Winthrop University, who spent two years in research trying to find common traits in Black
Friday shoppers. They conducted thirty-eight extensive interviews with “experienced" Black Friday shoppers and found four recurring themes:
1. Familial bonding (multiple generations and close friends)
2. Strategic planning
3. The great race
4. Mission accomplished
But how do the four themes they came up with relate to one another? Thomas and Peters figured that all the traits when analyzed together showed one commonality. They wrote, "the traits are coalesced around a military metaphor, and is a bonding activity Shoppers prepare for the ritual by scanning Black Friday ads, and
Bustling city streets, hour-long lines, and retail store chaos: only one scenario explains the commonality between these situations, shopping on Black Friday. For half a century Black Friday has become an unofficial retail holiday in the United States. It is a day that offers incredible discounts and killer deals, and most notoriously, it brings a frenzy of crazed shoppers to local retailers looking to save on purchases. Marketing strategies, paired with consumers’ need to locate the best deals on Christmas gifts has led to Black Friday being celebrated as a consumption ritual comparable in importance to Thanksgiving Day. (Thomas and Peters, 2011) How has Black Friday become the largest retail sales day of the year? What is it that drives people to artificially induced hyper consumption, almost like an annual ritual? Many scientist and psychologists have many different theories and conclusions of why Black Friday has become the biggest shopping day of the year. In this paper, I will take your through the research and conclusions that many psychologists have produced and the advantages and disadvantages of Black Friday.
Dr. Stephanie Sarkis, Ph.D. explored the work of Jane Boyd Thomas and Cara Peters, professors at South Carolina's Winthrop University, who spent two years in research trying to find common traits in Black
Friday shoppers. They conducted thirty-eight extensive interviews with “experienced" Black Friday shoppers and found four recurring themes:
1. Familial bonding (multiple generations and close friends)
2. Strategic planning
3. The great race
4. Mission accomplished
But how do the four themes they came up with relate to one another? Thomas and Peters figured that all the traits when analyzed together showed one commonality. They wrote, "the traits are coalesced around a military metaphor, and is a bonding activity Shoppers prepare for the ritual by scanning Black Friday ads, and