Why Black Friday Cuts Prices

Mark the date: Friday, 27 November 2026. It is the Friday after Thanksgiving, and on that day shops across the world will cut prices on their biggest and most popular products, ahead of the holiday season. It is the year’s biggest shopping event, and it has a name that sounds like a warning: Black Friday. Why is it called that? Why do shops, which usually want the highest price they can get, suddenly compete to offer the lowest? And why does an event that began in American shops now fill screens in countries that do not celebrate Thanksgiving at all?

The honest answer to the first question is that nobody fully agrees. Opinion is divided as to why it is called Black Friday, and the history is messier than the neat stories you often hear. This post sticks to what can be checked: the date, the first known mention of the term, how the event grew from shop floors to screens, and the simple business logic that makes price cuts, for a few weeks a year, the most profitable thing a retailer can do.

When Black Friday Falls In 2026

Though the date shifts each year, Black Friday always takes place on the Friday after Thanksgiving. In 2026, Black Friday will be on Friday, November 27. Thanksgiving itself falls on Thursday, 26 November 2026, the day before, which is why the date moves: the sale follows the holiday, year after year, like a shadow.

The fixed rule matters because it turns Black Friday into a season, not just a day. Shoppers know when it is coming, months in advance. Retailers plan for it for months too, choosing which products to discount, how much stock to hold, and how to staff their websites and warehouses for a rush that now lasts far longer than a single Friday. The date is the anchor. Everything else, the deals, the adverts, the queues, the countdown timers, is built around it.

Black Friday Outside The United States

If you live outside the United States, the date may seem arbitrary. Thanksgiving is an American holiday, and many countries that now take part in Black Friday do not celebrate it. Yet the date still rules, because the event spread from America outward, carrying its calendar with it. The United Kingdom, slightly late to the party, joined in from 2014, as retailers such as Argos, Currys and John Lewis realised there was money to be made. It is now a worldwide phenomenon, with many countries across Europe, Asia, South America and Australia taking part each year.

Why It Is Called Black Friday: What Is Known

Here is what can be said with confidence, from the technology publication TechRadar’s account of the event. Opinion is divided as to why it is called Black Friday, but the first known mention of the term in relation to shopping dates from November 1951, when the journal Factory Management and Maintenance used it to describe people calling in sick the day after Thanksgiving so they could have an extra day off work. That is a surprising origin: not a story about shopkeepers or account books, but a story about workers taking an unofficial holiday.

Many other explanations circulate, and they should be treated with care. The most famous claims that shops move from loss, written in red ink, into profit, written in black ink, on this day. It is a neat story, and it may be part of the truth, but TechRadar’s account presents the naming as divided opinion, not settled fact, and the earliest known use it cites is the 1951 journal mention about absence from work. A careful reader should hold both facts together: the name’s origin is disputed, and the oldest shopping-related use we know of is about people skipping work, not about profits.

What is not disputed is how the day felt in its early years. Black Friday started out as an in-store event in shops across the US, with crowds, queues, and the physical rush of people trying to reach limited stock before it ran out. The name, whatever its first meaning, came to fit that feeling: a dark, crowded, slightly chaotic day, the day after a holiday, when normal life paused and shopping took over.

Why Shops Cut Prices At All

At first glance, price cuts look like madness. A shop’s job is to sell things for more than they cost. Cutting prices gives money away. So why do retailers across the world cut prices on their biggest and most popular products, ahead of the holiday season, in the year’s biggest shopping event? The answer is that Black Friday is not really about one product’s price. It is about volume, timing, and attention.

First, volume. A small profit on a very large number of sales can beat a large profit on a small number. If a shop sells ten televisions at full price, it makes ten margins. If it sells a thousand televisions at a small margin, it may make far more in total, while also clearing stock, filling its warehouses with cash, and bringing in customers who will buy other things at the same time. Price cuts are a way of turning a quiet week into a flood.

Second, timing. Black Friday sits at the start of the holiday shopping season, when people are already planning to buy gifts, decorations, and goods for the year ahead. Retailers cut prices now to capture that spending before competitors do. A customer who buys a television in a Black Friday sale is a customer who will not buy it from a rival in December. The discount is the price of winning the customer early.

Attention: The Third Reason For Price Cuts

Third, attention. In a crowded market, being noticed is half the battle. A dramatic price cut earns news coverage, social media posts, and word of mouth that no ordinary advert can buy. Even shoppers who buy nothing on the day itself learn which shops are competing hardest, and remember them when they do buy. The sale is advertising that pays for itself in sales.

How The Event Moved From Shops To Screens

Black Friday started out as an in-store event in shops across the US, but it has now mainly moved online, with the likes of Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy and Target competing to offer the best deals. That shift changed the event in three important ways.

It changed who can take part. An in-store sale favours people who live near a shop, can queue early, and can carry goods home. An online sale favours anyone with a phone and a connection, anywhere in the world, which is a large part of why the event spread across Europe, Asia, South America and Australia. Distance stopped mattering. The queue became a website, and the website never closes.

It changed how long the event lasts. There is no need to take the day off, because you can easily shop from the comfort of your desk, and the sales run for about a month now, so shoppers have a lot more time to browse and shop throughout late October and all of November. A single Friday became a season, with early deals, the main day, and follow-up sales stretching into the weeks after.

It changed what is sold. While the big online retailers dominate, many brands run their own Black Friday sales too. Some simply discount the products in their own stores, but others offer limited-edition models or throw in accessory packs for free. It is not limited to physical products, either, with streaming services often offering reduced-price subscriptions during the sales event. The sale now covers almost anything that can be bought, from phones and televisions to software, holidays, and entertainment.

What Kind Of Deals Shoppers Actually See

Not all price cuts are the same, and it helps to know the kinds. The simplest is a straight discount: a product that cost 500 last week costs 400 today. The cut is visible, the saving is real, and the comparison is easy. The second kind is a bundle: buy the main product and receive an accessory pack free, or a second item at a reduced price. The headline price may not fall much, but the total value rises. The third kind is a limited edition: a model made only for the sale, with a specification or colour that will not be sold again, which makes direct price comparison difficult.

Subscription And Service Deals

The fourth kind is the subscription or service deal: a streaming service, a software plan, or a membership offered at a reduced price for a limited period. These deals look small in money terms, a few pounds or dollars a month, but they commit the buyer to months of payments, and the full cost over a year may be much larger than the sale price suggests. The fifth kind is the doorbuster in its online form: a very deep discount on a very small amount of stock, designed to draw crowds to a website, where most visitors will buy something else at a normal price when the headline deal sells out.

None of these is dishonest by itself. All of them reward the same habit: checking what the product cost before the sale, what it costs elsewhere, and what the total cost will be over time. A price cut is only a saving if the starting price was honest and the product is one you wanted anyway.

Why The Sales Now Last A Whole Month

The month-long sale is not an accident. It solves three problems for retailers. First, it spreads the rush. A single day of record traffic can crash websites, exhaust warehouses, and overwhelm delivery networks. A month of deals spreads the same spending across weeks, which is easier and cheaper to handle. Second, it catches different shoppers: early browsers in late October, planners in early November, and last-minute buyers on the day itself. Third, it makes comparison harder. When prices move every few days, shoppers cannot easily tell whether today’s deal is better than last week’s, which keeps them watching, and watching shoppers buy more.

For shoppers, the long season has a clear lesson: the best deal is rarely the first deal, and rarely the last. Prices during a month-long sale go up and down, and a product discounted in late October may be cheaper, or more expensive, on 27 November itself. The patient shopper checks prices over time, uses price-history tools where available, and sets a limit before the sale begins. The impatient shopper, swept along by countdown timers and “only a few left” warnings, pays the price of hurry.

How To Shop Black Friday Without Regret

The wisest Black Friday habit is the simplest: make a list before the sales begin. Write down what you actually need, what you would pay at full price, and the maximum you will pay in the sale. Then, when the deals appear, compare the sale price with your list, not with the excitement of the moment. A discount on something you did not need is not a saving. It is spending, dressed as saving.

Check the starting price. A product “reduced from 800 to 500” is a bargain only if it really sold at 800 recently, in the same shop, for a meaningful period. Check other shops too: the big online retailers compete with each other, and the same product often appears at different prices in different places on the same day. Check the total cost, including delivery, accessories you must buy to use the product, and subscription costs that continue after the sale ends.

Finally, remember that Black Friday is a shopping event, not an emergency. The sales run for about a month, and most products will be available again, at some price, after it ends. If a deal feels pressured, rushed, or confusing, walk away. The year’s biggest shopping event will return next year, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, as it always does. Your money, once spent, will not.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it called Black Friday? Opinion is divided as to why it is called Black Friday, and no single explanation is settled fact. The first known mention of the term in relation to shopping dates from November 1951, when the journal Factory Management and Maintenance used it to describe people calling in sick the day after Thanksgiving so they could have an extra day off work. The name came to fit the crowded, chaotic in-store shopping day that followed, and it stuck as the event grew from American shops into a worldwide sale.

When is Black Friday in 2026? Black Friday always takes place on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and in 2026 it will be on Friday, November 27. Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, 26 November 2026, the day before. The date shifts each year because it follows Thanksgiving, and retailers build a whole season of sales around it, running for about a month through late October and all of November.

Why do shops cut prices on Black Friday? Shops cut prices to win volume, timing, and attention at the start of the holiday shopping season. A small profit on a very large number of sales can beat a large profit on a small number, and a discount now captures holiday spending before competitors do. Price cuts also earn news coverage and word of mouth that ordinary advertising cannot buy, and they bring in customers who will buy other things at the same time, which is why retailers across the world cut prices on their biggest and most popular products ahead of the holiday season.

Is Black Friday only in America? No, not any more. Black Friday started out as an in-store event in shops across the US, but it has now mainly moved online and become a worldwide phenomenon, with many countries across Europe, Asia, South America and Australia taking part each year. The United Kingdom joined in from 2014, as retailers such as Argos, Currys and John Lewis realised there was money to be made, and the big online retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy and Target, now compete to offer the best deals to shoppers everywhere.

Do Black Friday sales last only one day? No. There is no need to take the day off, because you can shop from the comfort of your desk, and the sales run for about a month now, so shoppers have a lot more time to browse and shop throughout late October and all of November. The main day, Friday 27 November 2026, is still the centre of the event, but early deals appear weeks before it, and follow-up sales stretch into the weeks after, covering physical products, limited-edition models, accessory packs, and reduced-price subscriptions.

Sources

TechRadar, “Black Friday”: https://www.techradar.com/tag/black-friday