Unsurprisingly, Black Friday is a concept which started out in the USA. It was the name given to the day after the Thanksgiving holiday - which always falls on the 4th Thursday of November. With the enormously important and expensive Thanksgiving celebration at an end, Americans would start to prepare for the next big holiday: Christmas. So, traditionally, Black Friday was the day that Americans would start doing their Christmas shopping. Or, at least, they would start thinking about doing their Christmas shopping.

Thanksgiving is a harvest celebration, and the traditions revolve around food. Consumer goods sales traditionally drop before Thanksgiving, as Americans focus on preparing for it. Seeing an opportunity to increase their sales right after the national Thanksgiving holiday, many retailers started offer discounts starting on the morning after Thanksgiving to lure people out after the indulgences and excesses of the previous day.

The term Black Friday was originally coined by Philadelphia’s traffic cops in the early 1960s to describe the increased traffic on the streets of their city on the day after Thanksgiving, as citizens were attracted into the city centre by all the sales and deals on Christmas gifts.

By the beginning of the 21st century, Black Friday sales had become a popular Thanksgiving tradition. Some retailers started opening a little earlier to get the jump on their competitors. This ‘war of the alarm clocks’ had a rapid snowball effect.

People formed overnight queues to secure the best deals - and when the doors opened, struggles and fights often broke out. Videos and stories of people fighting over TV sets and video game consoles, surging violently through shop doors and trampling each other in their rush to buy also became part of Thanksgiving tradition.

With Northweek, however, your safety (and dignity) is never in danger: you just have to browse through all our styles and click in www.northweek.com No sleeping in shop doorways, no agitated impatience, no mindless violence towards fellow shoppers. Chill out and click on.

As always, Black Friday falls the day after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday of November, so Black Friday is the fourth Friday, obviously. In 2024, Black Friday will be celebrated on the 29th November.

As you'll no doubt have noticed, Black Friday has grown in importance in the world over the past few years. At Northweek, we are aware of this, and we have always tried to surprise and delight our customers with the best Black Friday offers and discounts. This year we are doing it again, but bigger!