12-1-16

By: Avery Thomas

Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year and the start of holiday season. Companies make billions of dollars on Black Friday, as the mobs of people line up to the get the newest and fanciest electronics that are on sale. However, this year, many people chose to take the safer and much less tiring shopping route and shopped online from the comfort of their home.Online sales were expected to bring in $3.05 billion dollars this Thanksgiving and Black Friday, they ended up bringing in $3.34 billion dollars.

People shopping more online could mean bad things for businesses.When customers go into the store, they are frequently persuaded into buying more things than they need. Employees try to convince people to take advantage of their “great deals” and people could have their mind set on buying one certain things and see 5 other things that they want while walking through the store. Online shopping usually shopping usually causes people to spend less money because they aren’t being convinced to buy more than they wanted originally.

While many people line up to go to stores at midnight on Black Friday, many states allow stores to open on Thanksgiving. This could be another reason shoppers prefer to do their shopping online. People like to spend Thanksgiving with their families, not lining up outside a store to score some great deals. Many people question whether or not it should be legal for stores to be open on Thanksgiving anywhere in the country. If the store is open, that means there have to be employees there to work, when they could be home spending time with their families.

According to investopedia.com “ Black Friday e-commerce sales touched a record $3.3 billion this year, an increase of 21.6 percent from 2015 figures”. Although many people decided to stay home on Black Friday this year, there were still many people who went out to shop. There were huge crowds of people and lines that wrapped around the whole store. Multiple shootings happened across the country also and violent fight broke out as people fought for the best deals before they sold out. The violence could be the reason many people opted out of shopping in person this year. People would probably rather stay in the comfort of their own how to shop rather than go out at one in the morning and fight over sales.

While Americans were busy wrestling their way to good deals, Canadians took a different route on Black Friday and stayed away from the violent part. A video that went viral all over social media showed Canadians as a best buy store opened on Black Friday, calmly walking and as the employees clapped for them. If Americans could replicate the way Canada does Black Friday, then there may be more people who go to the stores. No violence, just people shopping for Christmas gifts and trying to score good deals.  Should America try to do Black Friday like Canada does?