why does the day after thanksgiving have to be call black friday?

Answer 1

It normally rains.

Coach

Answer 2

Company's hope if in the red, loosing money, that the sales after Thanksgiving will bring their bottom line into the black. There fore Black Friday.

Answer 3

because the day goes into the black the whole day and when they go into the black they start making money. For example if I open the store at noon that would be black until I would make money lets say I would not make money until three then it is not black anymore cause I made money. This is how stores work durning black Friday.

Answer 4

The stores call it Black Friday because that is when the profits from the year normally go from the red to black which means that they are making profits

Answer 5

Black in the retail Biz means your making profit.Red means you're in debt.
The Friday after Thanksgiving is one of the busiest shopping days of the year,putting the stores in the "Black".
I like to say "Black "Friday is when my "White" wife takes my"Grey" credit card and put me in the "Red",it always makes me see "Green".

Answer 6

BLACK FRIDAY (SHOPPING) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_Sale
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States, is historically one of the busiest retail shopping days of the year. Many consider it the "official" beginning to the holiday season. Most retailers will open very early and usually provide massive discounts on their products.

Although Black Friday is typically the busiest shopping day of the year in terms of customer traffic, it is not typically the day with the highest sales volume. That is usually either Christmas Eve or the last Saturday before Christmas.

Origin

The first use of this term to describe the day after Thanksgiving is not exactly known. There are two popular theories as to its origin.

Accounting practice

One theory is that stores traditionally operated at a financial loss for most of the year (January through November) and made their profit during the holiday season. When this would be recorded in the financial records, common accounting practices use red ink to show negative amounts and black ink would show positive amounts. Black Friday is the beginning of the period where they would no longer have losses (the red) and instead take in the year's profits (the black).

Stress from large crowds

Another theory comes from the fact that shopping experience on this day can be extremely stressful. The term is used as a comparison to the extremely stressful and chaotic experience of Black Thursday or other black days. According to The Word Spy:

Earliest Citation:
Christmas decorations around Tampa Bay started going up in late October, and business has been brisk since then. And while Friday--known as Black Friday for the legendary hordes--will be the biggest shopping day for many area stores, others ring up the greatest sales the Saturday before Christmas.
—Marilyn Marks, "Retailers expect good sales this Christmas," St. Petersburg Times, November 27, 1986

There exists an earlier reference, speaking to the Friday after Thanksgiving:

A BLACK FRIDAY.
There have been many Black Fridays in recent history. Most of them have been days of financial panic. There has been none of blacker foreboding than last Friday. And the blackness is not loss or fear of loss in stocks and bonds.
New York Times (1857-Current file).
New York, N.Y.: Dec 3, 1922. pg. 38, 1 pgs
ISSN/ISBN 03624331

Employees of retail stores have for years referred to Black Friday in a satirical way, to note the extremely stressful and hectic nature of the day. Heavy traffic and customer demands added to the long hours make it a difficult day.


Black Friday on the Internet

Advertisements in advance

Certain websites such as DealTaker.com offer information about Black Friday deals up to a month in advance. The text listings of prices are usually accompanied by adscans -- complete PDFs either leaked by insiders, or intentionally released by large retailers to give consumers insight and allow them time to plan.

Cyber Monday

The term Cyber Monday refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday, which unofficially marks the beginning of the holiday online shopping season.

In recent years, Cyber Monday has become a busy day for online retailers, with some sites offering low prices and other promotions on that day.

Controversy

Response (Buy Nothing Day)

Anti-consumer frenzy protesters have chosen this day as Buy Nothing Day in North America, where those concerned about the increasing power and influence of consumer corporations are urged to not make consumer purchases.

DMCA

In recent years, some retailers (including Wal-Mart, Target Corporation, Best Buy, and Staples, Inc.) have claimed that the advertisements they send in advance of Black Friday and the prices included in those advertisement are intellectual property and protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Using the take down provision of the DMCA, these retailers have threatened various internet web sites who post Black Friday prices to the internet in advance of the intended release date by the retailers. This policy apparently derives from a fear that competitors, in addition to customers, will also have access to this information and use it for competitive advantage. The actual validity of the claim that prices are protected intellectual property is uncertain as prices might be considered a 'fact' in which case they would not receive the same level of protection as pure intellectual property.

The benefit of threatening internet sites with a DMCA based lawsuit has proved tenuous at best. While some sites have complied with the requests, others have either ignored the threats or simply continued to post the information under the name of a similar sounding fictional retailer.

Answer 7

Because its when retailers go into the black, it's when they start making money.

Answer 8

Ebay declared it "National Sleep-in Day" for those of us who use catalogs and internet shopping instead of crowded stores with overpriced, shoddy goods. I like it!

Answer 9

its the day when retailers go into the "black" because of all of the money that is spent on that day.

Answer 10

it's a sales term; it doesn't mean anything bad; if you're in the red, then you're in debt; if you're in the black, then you are making a profit. that's why. bcuz it's the biggest sales day of the year.

Answer 11

WEird huh?? Its madness though...i just went out for food only!!