What is Black Friday? (And How To Make The Most Of It)

We know that Black Friday is all about global retailers giving massive discounts, all triggered by the Thanksgiving holiday in the USA. But how did it get its name?

Black Friday

In Australia, sadly, Black Friday represents some of the worst bushfires in history. A hot 45.6°C day caused 75% of Victoria to be affected by the disaster. On January 13, 1933, 71 people died when over 1300 homes were wiped out, and 69 sawmills burned. Some 3700 buildings were destroyed.

In more recent times, the shopping extravaganza Black Friday has dominated the consumer psyche. How did the shopping version of Black Friday get its name?

A stock market crash triggered it

In 1969 a US stock market crash prompted the name. A couple of bold, adventurous gold investors drove up the price of gold and caused a crash so big that it caused foreign trade to stop and the stock market dropped over 20% in one day.

Black Friday is going to be huge. As consumers, we all love the sales before Christmas.

The Kingdom team has been shopping up an online frenzy for a few years now and each year, get more and more prepared.

Here are our tips for Black Friday shopping success.

14 Great Tips to Make the Most Of Your Buying

Take the day off work, yep it’s that big. To max out your deals, you need lots of surfing time.
Find the fastest internet you can. Its a day of high bandwidth, more internet, more pages. More pages more deals.
Check your email spam folder. This is the one day of the year you want all those sales spammy retailer emails.
Hold a Black Friday Party. More eyes mean more amazing deal discovery. Plus, it's outrageously fun. Offer up the best deal of the party prize and watch the competition drive bargains.
Load your shopping carts up now. Smart retailers will send you reminders, and you get added deals from abandoned cart offers.

Take the day off, enjoy the frenzy

Groupon, Scoopon - the coupon sites are into it. They are offering sitewide deals on already-cheap options. Great way to fund your family nights out and school holidays for the kids.
Don’t forget, Aliexpress. The Chinese Amazon is a powerhouse. Hot off the deals from Singles day (November 11), there are plenty of bargains to be had shopping from China’s biggest retailer.
Make a list of what you want but, more importantly, what you bought. It’s so easy to forget the Christmas presents in transit.
Make sure you pay for good shipping! If it’s for Christmas 2019, make sure it gets here. Beware the slow boat from China trap.
Friday means Friday. Even though many retailers go early with their specials, plenty do not, so don’t get sucked in the day before. Black Friday is the day when it really goes off. You won’t miss out. Cyber Monday is also a day when specialised technology deals kick-off.

Christmas shopping has never been so fun

Make sure you check the returns info. If the size is wrong, you want to swap and at least get a credit back. Getting a credit after the event is a problem, though, as the low prices disappear and you miss out.
Look for the portals. Wish, eBay, Amazon, Ozbargain.com.au; there are loads of them. They often have sitewide sales with extra discounts.
Look for emails that commentate the sale. We love T3.com as they continuously provide summaries of what is cheap and excellent deals.
Start saving for next year. It will be bigger in 2020. The more money in the kitty, the more fun you will have.