A Week Full of Shopping
It’s 5 am, store lines are going out the door, there are Christmas decorations in every corner. Sound familiar? It’s black Friday! The Friday after Thanksgiving has stores full of crazed shoppers looking for the best deals. People waking up at the crack of dawn to get the best deal possible. This is the general idea of what black Friday is. In the year 2020, all of the preconceptions about black Friday have been changed. The week leading up to Black Friday and Thanksgiving has now changed to a shopping frenzy. In the event of the current shutdown, some stores are still open. But, they have slightly more restrictions referring to how many people are allowed in a store and socially distancing laws. This year, through the week of November 23 and November 28, stores are having a week-long Black Friday event. Stores are doing this because they do not want people to be crowding all in one place, all at one time. Some stores even announced that they are not open on Friday to prevent the mass crowds of people.
Alyssa Thome was asked about the changes of black Friday this year, she answered, “I am expecting Black Friday this year to be different from all of the other years, but I am still excited to go shopping.” Alyssa has high hopes for the days of black Friday shopping. Along with Alyssa, Autumn Anderson also had some thoughts on Black Friday this year. “With COVID going on this year, I know that it is going to be a different look into black Friday. But, I am still so excited to go shopping, hang out with my sister, and get those deals” quoted Autumn Anderson. Something that Autumn enjoys doing is wrapping the presents that she bought. Every stocking stuffer that she gets, she feels the need to wrap up in a cute Christmas wrapping paper. Ainslee Taylor is very involved in black Friday and stated, “Black Friday is something that I look forward to every year. I would consider myself a giving person, so when Christmas time comes around, I love handing out gifts to people. That is why I love taking part in Black Friday.” Ainslee enjoys the aspect of black Friday leading into the best time of the year for her, which is Christmas.
Black Friday is full of deals in every store. Some of the most popular places that people go to are Tanger Outlets, Target, Meijer, and Lowes. Each of these places often gets a great amount of revenue. With many of the people going there each year, it also holds a standard for the store itself. Each year people are expecting these stores to have bigger and better prices than any of the other stores. With the prices being lowered and the sales going higher, customers still spend a large amount of money on Christmas gifts. The average amount of money that is being spent on Black Friday is $400. According to a study in 2019, 93.2 million buyers were shopping online. A lot of the sales that you could find in the store are also online. So, with COVID still in effect this year, the numbers that were seen last year will most likely be congruent to what we see this year.
Why feel the need to go out into the store when you can shop from your warm, cozy couch? Some of the best deals are at your fingertips. For example, from Amazon, there is a hand blender that is originally $90. But, this week the blender is only $60. The deals from Amazon are possibly the best deals that you are going to get. Along with hand blenders, they are also having major deals on Alexa products. Every day, Amazon is coming out with new shopping deals for its customers. With new deals every day, this encourages people to buy from their website daily which helps with their revenue.
Although Black Friday has been altered this year, it will not stop the Christmas shoppers from getting the best deals possible. People are still going to wake up early and make the coffee they aspire to have. Except, this year there will be many more online shoppers than ever before.
