I have to confess that until two days ago, I had never heard of “Black Friday” before. Forgive my ignorance, I’m the guy who’s never even sure what day Thanksgiving is. I guess my memory slips are forgivable because I’m Nigerian and ‘thanksgiving’ probably only brings a church service to mind.
Nevertheless, I was curious to find out why it had to be “Black” and I was almost misled by tweets on my timeline claiming it was originally used to refer to the selling of slaves.
Thank God for the internet and Google, I was quickly able to file the said tweets under the category of “malicious misinformation”.
A simple Wikipedia search informs that ‘Black Friday’ is one of the most important shopping events of the year, where prices fall faster than you can even say “Jack”!
However, I digress; ‘Black Friday’ is said to owe its name to the phrase “In the black” which many accountants use to mean turning a profit. Most retailers who struggle to get people interested in their products during the year find that the festive season is a period where sales hit the roof and they find themselves “in the black”.
Anyhow, regardless of how it got its name, here are the facts; Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving Thursday when retailers offer a one of kind massive price slash to lure customers to splurge one last time before Christmas.
Some five or six years ago, this fad would probably have meant nothing to Nigerians but thanks to the internet, social media and online retail stores like Jumia, Black Friday has crossed over to this end of the world and it’s safe to say that it’s here to stay.
With numerous online stores outdoing themselves in pre-Black Friday hype and publicity, they whetted the appetite of the general public by offering snippets of just the kind of price slash they are offering.
Perhaps, what caught the eye of most people (and even that of the author) was the advert for the Samsung s5 for a going rate of N41,500. My jaw dropped so fast gravity didn’t even understand it.
Anyway, the much hyped Black Friday finally rolled around and there was so much traffic on some of these websites that they even had to schedule maintenance checks at midday. Who says Nigerians can’t shop!
Anyway, let us know, did you cop anything? How was the experience. Share your Black Friday experience with us!