Huge crowds, long lines, countless items, and extremely low prices all describe one of the most famous days of the year: Black Friday. This is the day that millions of Americans go shopping for hours and come home with trunks full of discounted sales items. Many who are determined to get the best deals before it is too late wait for hours in front of stores like Best Buy, Apple, Wal-Mart, and Target. Every year on this day, stores open in the wee hours of the morning and continue to attract shoppers for the rest of the weekend.

  This year, Black Friday proved to be quite successful for retailers who gained a total of $52.4 billion in their sales. Compared to last year, this was a 16.4% increase which happens to be beneficial to companies as well as our economy. Last year, there was a total of 212 million shoppers and that number incresed to 226 million.

  Some Americans tend to shop online in order to avoid the hectic atmosphere of stores during Black Friday, which is a tradition known as Cyber Monday. Thirty-five percent more people shopped online compared to last year, totaling up to 50 million Americans. Speaking of online shopping, Cyber Monday has become very popular over the years and sales that can only be found on the internet wrap the big weekend sales that we find at stores after Thanksgiving Day. It was estimated that 122.9 million Americans shopped on Cyber Monday–16 million more than the year before.

  Analysts and investors conclude from results that Best Buy had the most successful Black Friday. Some of the reasons behind their success this year include having better deals than most other stores and creating deals that required individuals to actually visit the store. However, Macy’s and Wal-Mart were also considered to be high-up on the scale.

  The outcome of this year’s Black Friday was extremely shocking because most analysts thought that the condition of our current economy would cause most Americans to not go shopping this year–especially considering the high unemployment rate, cost of gasoline, and “concerns about fiscal uncertainty in Europe”. However, the results are good news for our economy and indicate a hopeful end to this long recession.

  Black Friday may seem pointless sometimes when we consider how time-consuming it is, but it helps consumers receive goods at a cheaper price as well as slightly boosting the sales of retailers, which affects our economy in a positive way.