Lines wrapped around department stores, fights over products and crowds so large they poured out of retailers’ front doors used to be par for the course on Black Friday. But in recent years, what defines the shopping event has changed significantly. There’s no more sprinting into stores before sunrise to snag 24-hour doorbusters — now, Black Friday competes with Cyber Monday, causing most sales to shift online, start earlier and stick around longer. Some even say that Black Friday has transformed into Black November, a term experts use to describe the month-long discounts leading up to Thanksgiving weekend.
“Black Friday used to be a trigger for people to go to the store, but as it’s morphed into a general promotional season, Black Friday itself lost its magic: its sense of urgency,” says Barbara Kahn, a professor of marketing at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
To help you understand how Black Friday became the busiest shopping day in the U.S., I spoke to experts about its history and charted how it’s changed since its inception. Experts also shared their predictions for Black Friday 2025 — spoiler alert: this year’s deals are lackluster compared to what you’re used to, but they’re absolutely still worthwhile.
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Looking back on Black Fridays of years past
There were signs that Black Friday’s identity was changing from a predominantly in-store experience to an online shopping bonanza even before the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2019, for the first time, Black Friday topped Cyber Monday as the busiest day for online shopping, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF). Then, in 2020, circumstances further motivated retailers to reinvent their typical Black Friday offerings by promoting online shopping and transforming days-long sales into months-long savings events. These efforts worked in retailers’ favor: the number of online Black Friday shoppers passed 100 million in 2020, a record, according to the NRF. Retailers have approached Black Friday with similar strategies ever since, resulting in comparable trends for the past five years.
Every year since 2019, there’s been more total online shoppers during Black Friday than during Cyber Monday, according to the NRF. However, people historically spend more on Cyber Monday than on Black Friday, according to Adobe. This may result from messaging on retailers’ websites indicating that Cyber Monday is shoppers’ last chance to take advantage of deals, says Dr. Ross Steinman, a professor of consumer psychology at Widener University. Some websites even display clocks counting the seconds until Cyber Monday is over. By creating pressure to check out before midnight, retailers add a gamification element to their sales, making shoppers more competitive while deal-hunting, says Steinman.
Beyond shopping online, shopping early altered Black Friday as we once knew it. Discounts leading up to the event give people ample time to spread out their spending, which may lead to a smaller spike in sales on Black Friday itself. This is exactly what happened during Black Friday 2021, the first time revenue growth reversed year over year — sales totaled $8.9 billion, compared to $9 billion in 2020, according to Adobe.
After Black Friday 2021, experts began closely monitoring the impact of early deals. This was especially important in light of Amazon’s first October Prime Day (officially called Prime Big Deal Days), which is now a staple in the retailer’s sales calendar. It essentially kicks off the holiday shopping season and causes other retailers like Target, Walmart and Best Buy to offer corresponding savings events about a month before Black Friday.
Despite a now prolonged period of early deals, Black Friday sales have been back on track since 2022. Adobe estimates them to total around $9.12 billion in 2022, $9.8 billion in 2023 and $10.8 billion in 2024.
Two factors have driven positive Black Friday performance over the past few years: consumer demand and retailers’ ability to meet shoppers where they are. People are hungrier than ever for savings as economic concerns like inflation and tariff-related price hikes loom, but they prioritize convenience and want the best deal possible. By hosting sales online and in stores for multiple weeks, retailers give people the opportunity to shop when and where they want with ample time to browse deals and compare prices, says Steinman.
What to expect during Black Friday 2025
All the experts I talked to agree that Black Friday 2025 will be another record-breaking sale, and it’s likely to set the overall holiday shopping season up for success. Adobe forecasts Black Friday sales to be up about 8.3% year-over-year ($10.8 billion in 2024 and $11.7 billion in 2025), and the NRF expects overall holiday sales to surpass $1 trillion for the first time ever.
That doesn’t mean it’s smooth sailing, however — higher tariff rates imposed throughout 2025 are putting retailers in a tricky situation. They want to offer competitive deals that draw shoppers in, but many are absorbing a portion of import taxes to avoid drastically raising prices, says Erik Guzik, an assistant clinical professor of management and entrepreneurship at the University of Montana College of Business. That means they can’t discount items as aggressively as they have in years past and still make a profit.
“There’s still going to be great deals, but they’ll be more limited, and we need to be more realistic about discounts,” says Guzik. “In the past, we may have expected a 40 to 50% discount to be the norm, but this year, 20 to 30% might be quite good.”
Inventory is also a concern, he says. Retailers imported the majority of their merchandise before higher tariff rates took effect this spring, and stockpiled it in U.S. warehouses. Months later, inventories are now running low, so once an item sells out on Black Friday, it’s likely gone for good, says Guzik. Since products will go out of stock quickly and frequently this year, shopping early is essential.
With all that said, Black Friday sales are more than likely to increase year-over-year, even if deals won’t be as good or as plentiful in 2025. “Consumers still believe that they’ll get the absolute best discounts of the year on the days that are known for them: Black Friday and Cyber Monday,” says Vivek Pandya, the director for Adobe Digital Insights. Will they be less flashy than usual? Yes, without a doubt. But they’re still some of the lowest (if not the lowest) prices retailers will offer in 2025, and shoppers are counting on them for holiday savings. Plus, as companies import goods in early 2026, many will be forced to raise prices, says Guzik. Black Friday (and Cyber Monday), then, might be your last chance to buy products on your wishlist before they cost way more.
A trend to watch during Black Friday 2025
One of the biggest trends Pandya currently has on his radar is consumers using AI as their shopping companion during Black Friday and throughout the holiday shopping season. Compared to 2024, Adobe expects a 517.5% increase in traffic from AI sources to retail sites between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, 2025, with the largest year-over-year growth expected on Thanksgiving Day at 725-730%.
“Last year, consumers were tinkering with it, but this season, it’s really scaling, and people are purchasing more effectively as a result of AI sources,” says Pandya. “We’re seeing a very conscientious, strategic consumer driven by efficiency and speed who’s trying to manage the crunch of the holiday season, look for deals and discounts, and have peace of mind that they got the best value. Using AI as their personal shopper lets them triangulate information in terms of price and shipping options, and they trust the results, too.”
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How Black Friday became Black November
Black Friday used to mark the beginning of the winter holiday shopping season, and December 24 (the day before Christmas) marked the end, says Cullen. But because many retailers now offer deals months ahead of Black Friday, what we once considered the standard, predictable retail calendar is obsolete.
Unlike Amazon Prime Day and Cyber Monday, Black Friday originated as an in-person, social shopping experience. It happens on the Friday after Thanksgiving, a paid holiday for most employees. Because people were at home, retailers began slashing prices on merchandise to draw shoppers into stores, giving friends and family something to do together. “Deals had to be worth jumping out of bed and running to the store for, and maybe even waiting in line for a while, too,” says Kahn.
Retailers used to compete to see who could open first on Black Friday, and some even welcomed shoppers into stores on Thanksgiving. “Everyone wanted to participate in the rat race to see who could get people to run to their stores first,” says Kahn. This transformed Black Friday into a five-day shopping weekend beginning on Thanksgiving and ending on Cyber Monday. And eventually, because so much shopping during that period began happening online, experts named it the Cyber Five. Those five days expanded into a week, then multiple weeks, then a whole month, leading experts to dub all of November “Black November.”
“Thanksgiving weekend used to be the start of the shopping season, but now we look at it as more of a halfway point,” says Cullen. “Black Friday and Cyber Monday are hallmark events that have a very important place both for consumers and retailers, but within a broader context of a longer shopping season.”
Why do Black Friday sales start so early?
Starting Black Friday sales weeks before the actual event is a response to recent consumer behavior trends, says Cullen. Retailers adjusted their schedules accordingly after seeing a strong increase in early holiday shopping, a trend supported by NRF surveys. In fact, half or more of shoppers surveyed say they have taken advantage of early sales before Thanksgiving for years now, says Cullen. Doing so lets them spread out their spending over multiple weeks to avoid “lumpy spending,” or concentrated purchases during the holidays with subsequent massive bills, says Steinman.
Because Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales now span five days — or the entire month of November in some cases — retailers have to format their events strategically to maintain shoppers’ interest. To do so, some promote limited-time flash sales on specific products, and rotate them every few hours, days or weeks instead of offering blanket storewide discounts throughout the month, says Cullen.
Is in-store Black Friday shopping dead?
No, in-store Black Friday shopping isn’t dead. It’s still the most popular day for in-store shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend, and 81.7 million people participated during Black Friday 2024, according to the NRF. But as more shoppers take advantage of online sales, it’s no longer what defines the holiday. Now, the main segment of shoppers who visit stores in person on Black Friday are those steeped in tradition, says Steinman. They see Black Friday from an experiential lens — they want to spend time with loved ones while browsing deals and are reluctant to give up that yearly outing together.
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How Black Friday impacts the holiday shopping season
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are intertwined with the larger holiday shopping season, but they’re not always dependent on one another, says Cullen. For example, when the NRF surveyed shoppers about how much they spent on holiday-related items during Thanksgiving weekend in 2023, spending was slightly down from 2022 ($325.44 in 2022 and $321.41 in 2023). But sales during the overall holiday shopping season — which the NRF defines as the period from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31 — grew 3.9% year-over-year.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday also shape the global retail calendar. Americans associate these sales with Thanksgiving, but over 20 countries, including the United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden and Mexico, host similar events, some using the same name despite not celebrating Thanksgiving.
All Black Friday shopping events worldwide also take place on the same day — for example, retailers in Canada host Black Friday sales on the same day as those in the U.S., despite the country recognizing the second Monday in October as its Thanksgiving holiday. This speaks to Black Friday’s legacy and weight: the best deals of the year and a social shopping experience made for the holiday season, says Kahn.
Why is Black Friday called Black Friday?
The term “Black Friday” originally had no connection to shopping, says Nancy Koehn, a historian and professor at the Harvard Business School. It described a financial panic in 1869 that resulted from investors Jay Gould and Jim Fisk driving up gold prices and ultimately causing the market to crash. Since its 19th-century inception, the term “Black Friday” has generally been used to describe other negative events, such as workers not showing up for work the day after Thanksgiving, says Koehn.
The first time “Black Friday” specifically referred to shopping the day after Thanksgiving was in the 1950s. Police in Philadelphia complained about an influx of people coming to the city to shop the day after Thanksgiving, calling it a “Black Friday” because they had to control crowds. From there, the term came to describe shopping on that day and gained momentum each year.
Originally, retailers were upset about the name “Black Friday” because the term had a negative connotation, says Koehn. There were efforts to call it “Big Friday” instead, but they ultimately failed. Retailers then changed the narrative and decided that Black Friday is when they’re supposed to be “in the black,” a financial term describing a business’s profitability and prosperity, in contrast to being “in the red,” or in a deficit.
Koehn says the idea of positioning Black Friday as a shopping holiday “galloped forward” between the 1970s and 1980s, which she attributes to retailers instigating competition among themselves and expanding the deals they offered. Overall, “there was no defining moment that made us call Black Friday ‘Black Friday,’” says Koehn. “It’s really the evolution of language and definition, retail practices and consumers responding to that.”
Meet our experts
At NBC Select, we work with experts who have specialized knowledge and authority based on relevant training and/or experience. We also ensure that all expert advice and recommendations are made independently and with no undisclosed financial conflicts of interest.
- Barbara Kahn is a professor of marketing at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
- Katherine Cullen is the vice president of industry and consumer insights at the National Retail Federation.
- Nancy Koehn is a historian and professor at the Harvard Business School.
- Dr. Ross Steinman is a professor of consumer psychology at Widener University.
- Vivek Pandya is the director for Adobe Digital Insights.
- Erik Guzik is an assistant clinical professor of management and entrepreneurship at the University of Montana College of Business.
Why trust NBC Select?
I’m a reporter at NBC Select who has covered Black Friday and Cyber Monday since 2020. I’ve written about the history of both events, and explained what to buy and what to skip during each one. I’ve also appeared in Black Friday and Cyber Monday-related NBC News NOW broadcast segments, and co-hosted a For What It’s Worth livecast episode about the sales. Additionally, I cover the best deals during all major shopping holidays throughout the year, and how tariffs are impacting shopping habits and consumer goods prices. For this piece, I interviewed six experts about the history of Black Friday, plus I researched related retail trends and consumer spending data.
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