Black Friday 2017: When And Why It Exists

The Name

Black Friday, like everything, has a reason for why this Friday in November is dubbed “Black”. The term comes from old accounting books when everything was written by hand. Losses were written in red and profits were written in black. This Friday marked the tipping point for most retailers to go from loss to profit – a big day indeed!

The When and Why

Black Friday takes place the day after Thanksgiving Day in the US which is always the fourth Thursday of November. Since Thanksgiving is the last big holiday before Christmas, Black Friday is considered the beginning of the Christmas shopping season which is why retailers started discounting on the day.

The UK wasn’t fully on-board with Black Friday until 2013 when Asda, who are owned by American company Walmart, had a Black Friday sale and offered massive discounts on a wide range of products. This went down incredibly well with UK customers, so 2014 saw many retailers joining in the bandwagon.

Nowadays, it’s an accepted day (or even week) of massive sales and bargains to be had for some timely Christmas shopping. No longer are there riots and fights over TVs since the whole event is best browsed online – you just have to be quick.

We’ve got an incredible week of deals on from the 20th-24th November this year; check out our deal calendar so you don’t miss out. We've got our best deals in a handy guide here!