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# Everything You Need to Know About Black Friday

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<!-- video src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/aUhRYurO.m3u8" -->
## Video: Everything You Need to Know About Black Friday

[Watch (HLS stream): Everything You Need to Know About Black Friday](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/aUhRYurO.m3u8) (2:32)

![Everything You Need to Know About Black Friday](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/aUhRYurO/poster.jpg?width=720)

_Published 2013-11-23. Everything you need to know about Black Friday, including misnomers about where the phrase came from, the dollars spent this weekend, and whether the shoppers' holiday is really the best time to get a deal._


---

Jul 27, 2023 3:57 PM UTC

---

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### Black Friday: Arrests and Violence as Shoppers Rush to Discounts

---


## Transcript

The most iconic fall holiday isn't even over for more than 24 hours before it's time for the next big day, Black Friday. [ NOISE ]. Here's what you need to know. [ MUSIC ] We were invited inside. We had our cameras set up so that we would capture that moment when the doors open and the shoppers come rushing in. That was when the madness began. We will continue to work this story throughout the day. Black Friday. What says pre- Christmas, excuse me, Thanksgiving, more than sitting out in the cold, knowing you'll eventually have to elbow through a crowd full of people grabbing the same stuff that you want.

The commonly advertised origin of Black Friday states it's the day the year stores accounting books go from red to black. The National Retail Federation says holiday shopping can make up 40 % of a store's annual sales. Uh- uh, not so much. In the world of quarterly earnings, retailers don't operate in the red 11 months out of the year, take a turn on this magical shopping day, and suddenly turn profitable. In 1994, a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter wrote he and a fellow crime reporter first published the phrase Black Friday in 1960, as a police term describing huge crowds and traffic gridlock the day after Thanksgiving.

While most shoppers stay civil, these videos have perhaps come to symbolize the shopping madness. Sprints that look more like stampedes. In 2008 Black Friday shoppers in New York trampled a 34 year old Wal- Mart worker as the store's doors opened, and Black Friday isn't just a one day deal anymore. Many retailers now call it Black Friday weekend and regularly open their doors on Thanksgiving Day. The National Retail Federation estimates 140 million people will shop this Thanksgiving Thursday through Sunday. Which is actually a decrease of 4. 8 % from 2012. Overall spending from November through December is still expected to top $ 600 billion.

And the NRF points out, online shopping should grow by 13 to 15 % this year. Big box retailers trend more and more toward putting their sales up before the big holiday weekend. So, is Black Friday really the best time to get a deal? DealNews says, when it comes to toys for the kids, probably not. The website analyzed Toys R Us fab 15 toys from last year. DealNews found prices for almost all of those 15 toys dropped further in the first 2 weeks of December. Oh, and don't forget Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday because the shopping never seems to stop this time of year. Good luck. For Time, I'm Krissal Ethan.

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