What Black Friday's history tells us about holiday shopping in 2024

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The holiday shopping season is about to reach full speed with Black Friday, which kicks off the post-Thanksgiving retail rush later this week

NEW YORK — The holiday shopping season is about to reach full speed with Black Friday, which kicks off the post-Thanksgiving retail rush later this week.

The annual sales event no longer creates the midnight mall crowds or doorbuster mayhem of recent decades, in large part due to the ease of online shopping and habits forged during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hoping to entice equivocating consumers, retailers already have spent weeks bombarding customers with ads and early offers. Still, whether visiting stores or clicking on countless emails promising huge savings, tens of millions of U.S. shoppers are expected to spend money on Black Friday itself this year.

Industry forecasts estimate that 183.4 million people will shop in U.S. stores and online between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, according to the National Retail Federation and consumer research firm Prosper Insights & Analytics. Of that number, 131.7 million are expected to shop on Black Friday.

At the same time, earlier and earlier Black Friday-like promotions, as well as the growing strength of other shopping events (hello Cyber Monday ), continue to change the holiday spending landscape.

Here's what you need to know about Black Friday's history and where things stand in 2024.

Black Friday falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving each year, or Nov. 29 this year.

The term “Black Friday” is several generations old, but it wasn't always associated with the holiday retail frenzy that we know today. The gold market crash of September 1869, for example, was notably dubbed Black Friday.

The phrase's use in relation to shopping the