Black Friday - A Gift for Thanksgiving or an Economic Strategy?
November 22 is a special day for many Americans. They widely celebrate Thanksgiving - the holiday of gratitude for everything God blessed with. It has roots in religious traditions, but today it is mainly celebrated mainly in secular way, typically with family. Many people feel excited about this holiday because they visit each other and prepare different meals to celebrate it. However, there is another reason main reason why millions of people across the nation look forward to that day; Black Friday, in other words, A Big Discounts Day. Practically all mega-markets on that day, usually after 8 pm, open their stores offering discounts up to 90%. Many people stay up all night and wait for the discount
stores to open because it is a good opportunity to buy a product at almost twice as cheap as in any other time of the year. But is it really out of the goodness of the heart of corporate people or there is a strategic plan behind that?
I experienced Black Friday wandering around stores to find a good deal for my needs. Every store, almost every store had a long line of 500 meters waiting for them. From a business student perspective, I can say that this is the most creative way of heating up the economy with cash inflow into money circulation. Billions of dollars will be injected within the economy over a night by individual savings which in the same way makes more money available at Federal and State Banks for corporate America.
Consequently, many corporations then borrow this money back from financial institutions and
invest in strategic projects that will ultimately create more jobs for people. In fact, the reason why it is called Black Friday is normally before 1980 many corporations used to make low revenue during the year (January through November) but after Thanksgiving the sales used to climb dramatically. Therefore, accountants used to highlight their loss or low revenue till November with a red color in their accounting books and thereafter with black color to show sales boost. Amazing, isn't it? There is mutual benefit for both customers and businesses. Good deals for consumers and immediate inventory turnover and thus large profit for businesses.
After all I experienced on November 22, I came to a conclusion that Black Friday is not just about discounts. It is about catalyzing the economic growth and ameliorating the living standards in the nation and the phonemenal event that many developing and developed nations should implement.