节日总是和商机联系在一起,在英联邦国家,圣诞过后的第二天商家纷纷打折,人们疯狂抢购。美国的圣诞购物季来得更早,精明的商人们在感恩节后的第二天——也就是11月份的第四个星期五——就早早开门迎客,这就是所谓的“黑色星期五”了。总有商家迫不及待,不断提前开门营业的时间,从早上六点,到凌晨四五点,甚至提前到了感恩节当天,于是又有了“黑色星期四”之说。 By Michael Scot Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day1 in the United States, often regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. In recent years, most major retailers have opened extremely early and offered promotional sales to kick off the holiday shopping season, similar to Boxing Day sales in many Commonwealth Nations.2 Black Friday is not an official holiday, but many non-retail employees and schools have both Thanksgiving and the day after off, followed by a weekend, thereby increasing the number of potential shoppers. It has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005, although news reports, which at that time were inaccurate, have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time.3 The day’s name originated in Philadelphia, where it originally was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving.4 Use of the term started before 1961 and began to see broader use outside Philadelphia around 1975. Later an alternative explanation began to be offered: that “Black Friday” indicates the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit, or are “in the black”.5 |