Black Friday! The history of the mega sale and our own Black Friday gift box ideas.

Black Friday is an American phenomenon that was first used in 1869.  We see it as a big sale day (now month) but it has a much bleaker history.  Two investors drove up the price of gold so much that the stock market crashed causing a market drop of 20% and widespread chaos.  The day after Thanksgiving is traditional in being the start of Christmas celebrations and in the 1950’s the Philadelphia police used the term Black Friday to describe their mood. Due to the increase of shoppers they ended up working long hours to cover the extra crowds and traffic.  By the 1980’s Black Friday was better known as “red to black” as a descriptive term for retailers who would sell so much in this period that their bank balances would go from red to black! 

Marked as the start of the shopping season in the states, and the start of the Christmas parades and city wide celebrations this mass sale has been adopted worldwide and has grown from being just one day to now weeks of sales and discounting in order to offer savings to shoppers in the run up to Christmas.

Here in the UK we’ve seen news articles of riots and stampedes outside stores with people camping out overnight to get the mega savings on offer, sadly we don’t see much of the Santa parades and parties, but for those who haven’t the stomach for the crowds most online retailers also join in the “fun” in fact in 2015, Amazon was the first to offer "Black Friday in July" they called this "Prime Day", promising better deals than on Black Friday. This is now as anticipated and advertised as Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day is becoming its own phenomenon much like the company itself.

Unsurprisingly and especially after 18 months of Covid online sales and “sales” have increased massively and with lower overheads than high street stores there are good discounts to be had.  The actual data associated with Black Friday and increased sales has now been largely disproved as retailers extend their sales way beyond the Thanksgiving weekend and in some cases through October and the whole of November. 

Rest assured OohBox won’t be ignoring the Black Friday sales weekend, though we are restricting it to a few days and as we offer gifts for all occasions, Birthday Gifts including Relax and Pamper Gift Boxes, Mindfulness and Thinking of You Gifts, Pet Gift Boxes and now Christmas Gifts there is something for everyone and you really don’t need to stress in the cold and struggle through the crowds as we will do everything for you.  All our gift boxes come hand wrapped in our crisp white packaging and are delivered to door free of charge (UK Mainland).  What more could you ask for?

Our sale will begin just before Black Friday and will last for the weekend so keep your eye on our socials to see what we have to offer.