Why isn’t it called Red Friday?

It is an accounting term. Being in the red means that funds are short. Black Friday is very prosperous for retail and it takes them out of the red and into the black.

Because traditionally it takes until the Friday after Thanksgiving for retail stores to finally be showing a profit (be in the black) for the year

What @curiosi and some others said.

It started off as a business term for the accounting, not as an advertisement sales. Where companies still in the red, would give discounts to get shoppers moving towards putting them in the black (in the positive money), which you might think should be green, but black ink is the easiest and most accessible color ink.


So really it's about ink color of a company being in the positive, which happens to be black, so black Friday.

What would the Red indicate? Christmas?

I see GJ gave you the reason for Black Friday.

it is

Dunno, I mean if you are in the red that is a bad thing.

Because they cross over into the black