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Here’s all you need to know about Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2021, including dates and definitions.
Black Friday is an annual shopping event that takes place on the Friday following Thanksgiving and often extends into Cyber Monday the following Monday. The days signal the start of the holiday shopping season, which will last until the end of the year. Here’s all you need to know about Black Friday 2021 ahead of time.
What are the dates for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2021?
This year’s Black Friday occurs on November 26, the day after Thanksgiving, which is on November 25. As a result, Cyber Monday will take place on November 29 this year.
What is the significance of the name “Black Friday”?
Black Friday got its name in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, when Philadelphia cops were said to refer to the day between Thanksgiving and the Army-Navy game as “Black Friday.” This Friday occurred to be a day when a huge number of people were expected to shop in the city, and cops were forced to work long hours to deal with the crowds and traffic that ensued.
Throughout the 1980s, the day became one of the most profitable days of the year for merchants, who began referring to it as Black Friday to signify strong earnings, as they began to use solely black ink (used to show profit) and less red ink (used to show loss).
The name now has a more retail connotation, denoting the start of the holiday shopping season, which begins the day following Thanksgiving. While Black Friday shopping used to mean camping outside stores to get the best discounts when they opened on Friday, it now includes both offline shopping in malls and stores as well as online buying on e-commerce sites such as Amazon.
What is Cyber Monday, and how does it work?
Retailers began to notice a new shopping trend among purchasers who were unable to shop during the Black Friday weekend in the early 2000s. On the Monday after, these consumers would frequently browse for bargains online, usually from their homes or offices.
In India, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are celebrated, but they are not that well-known shopping days, as Indians prefer to shop during their own significant festivals, which usually fall between Dussehra and Diwali. However, the words are becoming more popular every year, with big e-Commerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart attempting to bring their own versions of the Black Friday shopping season to India on the same days.