In the early 2000s and beyond, it was common for people to camp out overnight in front of major retail stores. But now, the lines are gone as people make the shift to online Black Friday shopping, leaving the classic ways of long lines in person behind. But how did the change start?

Black Friday has been around for many years providing many discounts on items that are never seen regularly in stores.

When COVID-19 hit in early 2020, a heavy emphasis was placed upon the world to avoid human contact as much as possible to prevent the spread of the disease.

One key method to prevent the spread was through online shopping, no longer did you have to roam around a store with hundreds of other people in it, but now you could press a few buttons from the comfort of your home and have your item delivered a few days later. As online shopping started to become the norm, many people would enjoy it more than going into a store.

With businesses losing out on Black Friday deals due to the lack of in-store shopping, naturally, they shifted to moving the deals to where the people are. This began the movement towards online Black Friday deals. Considering this shift, I highly doubt that businesses will ever bring back deals in-store to the extent that they were before the pandemic hit.

Due to COVID-19, many people understand that online shopping is what they prefer over going to a physical store. With that being said, businesses do still do in-store deals for Black Friday but not to the extent that they used to be.

Personally, I think this is a good change. A major issue of in-person Black Friday shopping was there would often be many brawls and fighting leading to damaged products, injuries, and sometimes even death. With the shift to online Black Friday, it helps to protect people from the physical risks of being in these swarms of people.

Furthermore, many stores have stretched the event to be a week full of deals instead of a singular day. This can help people stay safer by disseminating crowds of rowdy people trying to get their hands on the newest tech at an amazing deal from the more casual shoppers who are just there to get food for their families.

Although, many people have taken notice of the amazing prices provided during Black Friday. Some people alternative have noticed the deals to be just old deals that the store already cycles through normally every three to four months. While this may be true for some stores, it certainly does not include every store.

According to a study conducted by WalletHub about Black Friday deal averages over the years, the average deal percentage went down by two percent overall. What this means is that the average deal that the buyer gets is not as good as it used to be, though it is barely noticeable with just the small change of two percent.

I noticed this year that a lot of deals have gone down to a slight amount, but this is nothing that would lead me to either stop doing Black Friday shopping or immediately purchase many items.

Overall, I feel that Black Friday has most definitely changed, likely never to return to how it was, but still in a better direction.