Talk:Black Friday (shopping)

Spinoffs

these should be better organized. "cyber friday", for example, is an ATTEMPT to upstage cyber monday, but it has not really taken off. the article implies the two are comparable. moreover, no one has settled in on a name for thursday yet. "black thursday" will probably win out, but i have not heard it actually used yet. nor "thanksgiving thursday", which the article cites. news outlets are still saying "night before black friday".

and where is "local/small business saturday" in the article?! not as common as "cyber monday", perhaps, but clearly more common than "cyber friday" or some of the other recent coinages ("black wednesday", anyone?).

in other words, "black friday", "cyber monday" and "local saturday" are the only ones in common use. in that order! IMHO. 66.105.218.32 (talk) 22:50, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

UPDATE: newegg is having a "Black November" sale. LOL. talk about MILKING something! 66.105.218.22 (talk) 10:25, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Considering that businesses (hopefully) wind up "in the black" with green dollars, why not call that Friday, Green Friday?Dcrasno (talk) 20:33, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Neutrality

Parts of this article sound like they were written by the Occupy Wall Street crowd, such as "forcing employees to either go without enough sleep or miss all or part of Thanksgiving with family." There's a clear bias here ("Oh, the poor employees who have actually a job in this rotten economy and are actually expected to work!") that needs to be cleaned up, not in favor of the retailers but simply made neutral. B.Rossow · talk 15:23, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

This seemed a bit jarring to me too. The tenses are all mixed up as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.218.56 (talk) 00:12, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Since the NPOV language has been removed, I have deleted the POV flag. John M Baker (talk) 23:41, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Mis-information in article.

"similar to Boxing Day sales in many Commonwealth Nations."

How is Black Friday similar to Boxing Day? Black Friday is at the start of the holiday, Boxing Day is at the end. Americans also go shopping on "Boxing Day". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.168.187.66 (talk) 03:21, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

The article states that Walmart "opens" at 10 a.m. Walmart does not close for Thanksgiving (the only day it is closed is Christmas), the sale starts at 10 a.m. Also, the reason that Sears is open on Thanksgiving now is because they are owned by Kmart which also does not close for Thanksgiving. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.224.164 (talk) 02:07, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Walmart is open 24 Hours a day, every day, including Christmas Day. The store does not "open" at 8:00 P.M. for Black Friday, the Black Friday sale starts at 8:00 P.M. 71.72.29.104 (talk) 14:40, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

The above paragraph is not entirely correct. SOME Walmart stores are 24 hour stores, MANY are not. Please do not generalize without first doing research. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.38.192.143 (talk) 00:29, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

It also says "In 2012, Walmart led several other retailers in announcing it would open its stores at 8:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.", which is also not entirely true. Our management was under the impression that the Black Friday sales were going to start at 10PM on Thanksgiving, but ended up getting a memo saying that they would follow other retailers by starting their sales at 8PM. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.204.233.30 (talk) 18:03, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

The numbers in the chart don't multiply properly. Perhaps the column labelled "average" should be clarified by stating "median" instead, as average typically implies mean. Kimo sullivan (talk) 23:45, 23 November 2012 (UTC)Kimo

Blue Laws

Somewhere in the opening paragraphs the phrase "in most states" needs to be added. Some states, like Massachusetts, do not permit stores to open on Thanksgiving. Nor for the employees to even do prep work until 12:01 Friday, so in practice most are opening at 12:30 or 1 am this year.

Meanwhile, in the states where it IS permitted, how is "10 pm" a new extreme (2011), when the article later states they have previously been open "all day Thanksgiving"??

AFAIK, this is NOT the case. All of these big chains like Walmart, KMart etc are CLOSED the bulk of the day. The only question is whether they're opening at 10pm, 11pm, or w/e, where prior years it has been 4 am or 5 am Friday. 66.105.218.2 (talk) 12:35, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from , 24 November 2011

Current text: A backlash has resulted, with an online petition gathering more than 184,000 virtual signatures urging Target to let their employees have Thanksgiving with their families. Revised text: A backlash has resulted, with an online petition gathering more than 199,790 virtual signatures urging Target to let their employees have Thanksgiving with their families. Tahleki (talk) 16:54, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

 Done Updated the number, thank you. Zidanie5 (talk) 07:36, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

How about a backlash against the backlash! I would much rather go to a store at 10 at night than have to get up at 3 or 4 in the ferkin morning! Are they kidding?!

Hopefully when this plays out, they'll all be open 6pm Thanksgiving until 1 or 2 am Friday. Then we can all go home -- customers and staff alike -- and SLEEP all day Friday!

Show of hands? 66.105.218.22 (talk) 10:30, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Looks to me that the retailer lobby created this black friday idea in order to get more people into stores. The question is how much did the retailer lobby pay wikipedia to create this black friday entry?98.245.211.241 (talk) 17:21, 26 November 2011 (UTC)cryofan

Hey man, don't be so suspicious! The Sound and the Fury (talk) 03:07, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Improper portrayal of the Christmas tradition

I don't believe that it's part of any Christmas tradition to begin Christmas festivities on the day after Thanksgiving as part of the "Christmas season". The article should change these representations of "the Christmas season" to reflect what time period really is starting on the day after Thanksgiving in relation to Christmas, which is "the Christmas marketing season". If we merely referred again to "the Christmas shopping season", that information would be redundant within the context of explaining the phenomenon of Christmas-season shopping beginning on the day after Thanksgiving. But referring to the period as "the Christmas season" ascribed qualities to the Christmas tradition that don't actually exist. And the efforts of marketers to get people to spend more time shopping are not part of the Christmas tradition. Advent doesn't begin until November 27th, and Christmas is only twelve days long -- beginning on December 25th. Gabriel Arthur Petrie (talk) 17:30, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Gray Thursday

Propose change of name of Black Thursday section to Gray Thursday - this seems to be the term most outlets are using. ProfessorTofty (talk) 08:51, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

it have been introduced in norway

i got emails from several shops about it. this link is valid at the time of posting but it most likely wont last very long. http://www.spaceworld.no/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.208.59.120 (talk) 09:54, 23 November 2012 (UTC)