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Will retail's big day live up to its big reputation?
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True, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Sears and Walgreens were open Thanksgiving Day. But when it comes to the sport of competitive shopping, purists hold out for today's post-Thanksgiving hunt.
Thousands of Minnesotans are expected to awaken this morning outside of a mall or retail store, hoping to score a rock-bottom deal on a hard-to-get item.
Black Friday wasn't always such a bargain-hunter's bonanza. Between 1993 and 1999, total sales for the Friday after Thanksgiving ranked between the fifth- and the 10th-busiest day, according to Purdue University. ShopperTrak, an often-quoted source, didn't begin tracking figures until the 1999 shopping season.
But in four of the past five years, Black Friday has ranked as the top sales day of the holiday season, according to ShopperTrak's National Retail Traffic Index. Last year, retailers nationwide pulled in $10.3 billion, or 5.2 percent the total holiday sales. It's not unusual for stores to earn 25 to 40 percent of their annual profits between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Hence the name, "Black Friday," which has come to mean the day in which retailers' fortunes turn profitable, or from red to black. Never mind that Black Friday has been linked with financial disasters -- the Fisk-Gould scandal of 1869 and the Wall Street crash of 1929, among them.
The term Black Friday seems to have its roots in an innocuous 1981 Philadelphia Inquirer shopping story. Marketers eventually seized on it as a way to build up promotions. The Susan G. Koman breast cancer cure is marketing the day as "Pink Friday."
This year, a bevy of surveys portend that consumers will spend far less than last. But a poll this week estimated that nearly 60 percent of the country hasn't started holiday shopping yet. Along with falling gasoline prices, that gives retailers another reason to hope -- and to make sure they make a good impression on Black Friday, with deals and customer service.
Said Piper Jaffray retail analyst Jim Klinefelter: "In today's environment, you don't know when you'll see those customers again."
Jackie Crosby • 612-673-7335
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