こちらでは感謝祭の休日が明け、巷ではHoliday Seasonの商戦の火ぶたが切って落とされました。
最近は日本でも聞く機会が増えているかもしれませんが、今日はBlack Fridayです～ 感謝祭明けであちこちのデパートやお店は買い物客で賑わいます。
下の写真はNY Daily Newsからのものです～ 我々の地域もここまですごくはないのですが、それでもShopping Mallsは込み合っていて、駐車スペースを見つけるのが大変でした。
CHARGE! Bargain hunters line up throughout the city for Black Friday
商業主義のメッカ・アメリカでは近年は金曜日になる午前0時に開店というパターンが続いていましたが、今年はさらに加熱して、感謝祭当日の木曜日の午後8時から金曜日の午前1時までバーゲン、そしてまた金曜日の早朝から売り出しを続けるというパターンの店がいくつも出現しました。(後述のWikiの情報では2011年くらいから地域によっては既にそうした店はあったようですね)
日本の感覚で言うと、デパートの初売りが1月2日の午前0時から開始されたり、挙句の果てには元旦の夜8時から行われたりといったところでしょうか。日本もだいぶアメリカ的商業主義は浸透していますが、ここまで凄まじくはなっていないのかな・・・
Black Fridayから始まるHoliday Seasonの商戦は小売業にとっては1年間で最大の掻き入れ時です。小売業も業界によっては変わるのでしょうが、この1ヶ月ほどの期間に年間の20-40%程度を売り上げるようです。アメリカの景気を占う意味でも、とても大切な季節ですね。
What percentage of annual sales do the holidays represent?
For some retailers, the holiday season can represent as much as 20-40% of annual sales. In 2012, holiday sales represented 19.3% of total retail industry sales.
National Retail Association(全国小売業協会)のWebより
http://www.nrf.com/modules.php?name=Pages&sp_id=1140
このBlack FridayのBlackには、お店や小売業の利益が上がって黒字になるという意味がこめられているという話はよく聞きます。
ただWikiによると、1961年にPhiladelphiaで登場したこの言葉も、始めはショッパーが繰り出して 道路が混雑したりというネガティブな意味合いで使われ始めたということです。それが月日を重ねるに連れていろいろな意味合いが含まれ、恒例行事のようになってきたようですね。
特に小売業界は当然positiveな意味合いで このBlack Fridayという言葉を使うように、そして認知されるように頑張ってきて、定着したようです。
下記Wikiからの抜粋ですが、言葉の起源と小売業界の努力のあたりの記載はとても面白かったです。（ただし、諸説がありそうなので、Wikiの情報が間違えうる可能性も念のため気に留める必要はありますかね。でも、概して小売業はHoliday Seasonの商戦に寄らずに四半期ごとに黒字を狙い、実際に黒字化しているという記載は頷けます。さらにFairとするため、一部はこの時期の商戦に大きく依存しているという記載も加えていますが）
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_%28shopping%29
Origin of the term"Black Friday" as a term has been used in multiple contexts, going back to the 19th century, where in the United States it was associated with a financial crisis of 1869. The earliest known invocation of "Black Friday" to refer to shopping on the day after Thanksgiving was made in a public relations newsletter from 1961 that is clear on the negative implications of the name and its origin in Philadelphia:
For downtown merchants throughout the nation, the biggest shopping days normally are the two following Thanksgiving Day. Resulting traffic jams are an irksome problem to the police and, in Philadelphia, it became customary for officers to refer to the post-Thanksgiving days as Black Friday and Black Saturday. Hardly a stimulus for good business, the problem was discussed by the merchants with their Deputy City Representative, Abe S. Rosen, one of the country's most experienced municipal PR executives. He recommended adoption of a positive approach which would convert Black Friday and Black Saturday to Big Friday and Big Saturday.[22]The attempt to rename Black Friday was unsuccessful, and its continued use is shown in a 1966 publication on the day's significance in Philadelphia:
(後略)
Accounting practiceMany merchants objected to the use of a negative term to refer to one of the most important shopping days in the year.[23] By the early 1980s, an alternative theory began to be circulated: that retailers traditionally operated at a financial loss for most of the year (January through November) and made their profit during the holiday season, beginning on the day after Thanksgiving.[5] When this would be recorded in the financial records, once-common accounting practices would use red ink to show negative amounts and black ink to show positive amounts. Black Friday, under this theory, is the beginning of the period when retailers would no longer have losses (the red) and instead take in the year's profits (the black).[24] The earliest known use that presents the "black ink theory" appeared in the November 28, 1981 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer:
If the day is the year's biggest for retailers, why is it called Black Friday? Because it is a day retailers make profits – black ink, said Grace McFeeley of Cherry Hill Mall. "I think it came from the media," said William Timmons of Strawbridge & Clothier. "It's the employees, we're the ones who call it Black Friday," said Belle Stephens of Moorestown Mall. "We work extra hard. It's a long hard day for the employees."[25]This, like the 1961 and 1966 examples above, was found by Bonnie Taylor-Blake of the American Dialect Society.
The Christmas shopping season is of enormous importance to American retailers and, while most retailers intend to and actually do make profits during every quarter of the year, some retailers are so dependent on the Christmas shopping season that the quarter including Christmas produces all the year's profits and compensates for losses from other quarters.[26]
ちなみに、毎年Black Friday Weekendにどれだけの買い物客が訪れ、どれくらい売り上げられたのか統計データとなっています。これも上記のWikiからですが、ご参考です♪ Average Speentというのはおそらく一人当たりではなく、一家計当たりと推測していますが、それにしてもすごい金額ですね～
Retail salesThe National Retail Federation releases figures on the sales for each Thanksgiving weekend.[citation needed] The Federation's definition of “Black Friday weekend” includes Thursday, Friday, Saturday and projected spending for Sunday. The survey estimates number of shoppers, not number of people.
The length of the shopping season is not the same across all years: the date for Black Friday varies between 23 and 29 November, while Christmas Eve is fixed at 24 December. 2012 had the longest shopping season since 2007.[58]
YearDateSurvey PublishedShoppers, millionsAverage SpentTotal SpentConsumers PolledMargin for Error2013Nov29UnknownUnknownUnknownUnknownUnknownUnknown2012Nov23Nov 25247m$423.66$59.1 billion4,0051.6%2011Nov24Nov 27226m$398.62$52.5 billion3,8261.6%2010Nov25Nov 28212m$365.34$45.0 billion4,3061.5%2009Nov26Nov 29195m$343.31$41.2 billion4,9851.4%2008Nov27Nov 30172m$372.57$41.0 billion3,3701.7%2007Nov23Nov 25147m$347.55$34.6 billion2,3951.5%2006Nov23Nov 26140m$360.15$34.4 billion3,0901.5%2005Nov24Nov 27n/a$302.81$27.8 billionn/an/a
