Red Is The New Black

It was in the 1970’s that the day after Thanksgiving became known as Black Friday, so called because it was supposedly the day when retailers moved from being unprofitable (in the red) to being profitable (in the black). I knew the 1970’s, the 1970’s were friends of mine, and you - Year 2007 - are no 1970.

Black Friday, as we once knew it, is dead. Red is the new black.

From this day forward the Retail Contrarians will refer to the day after Thanksgiving as Red Friday. Red Friday, the day unprofitable retailers do things to become even more unprofitable.

It used to be that Black Friday kicked off with 6:00 a.m. “Door Busters” that made such great morning news stories. There’s nothing that says welcome to the holidays more than watching a newscast of two adults bloodied from fighting over some sale item while children cried in the background. Warms your heart doesn'€™t it?

But over the last couple of years it’s gotten worse. Now we have 12:01 a.m. Black Friday sales and the god-awful, totally ridiculous, Thanksgiving Day sales. I bet those Indians and Pilgrims wouldn’t have bothered sitting down to a good meal if they could have fought over a $399 laptop or $19.95 DVD player instead.

All this hype, all this advertising, and all this craziness to sell products below cost. Amazing. But wait, 2007 has gone to new lows. Since the October sales were in the dumper we’ve moved from Black Friday specials to Black Friday sale prices all November long. Now we can be even more unprofitable!

Red really is the new black.

I’m all for retailers having a successful holiday. But selling huge amounts of products at a loss is not how I would define success. Independent and specialty retailers should just let the department stores and discounters slug it out on who can lose the most money on Red Friday.

Especially since red is the new black.

Instead of lowering ourselves to their unprofitable approach, let’s start a movement of retailers called The Red Friday Coalition. We can make a stand that we’re in business to actually make money and not be a part of the destruction of Thanksgiving. Maybe we don’t even bother to open our stores that day. We refuse to participate in the act of purposely losing money, and instead we just stay home, eat leftovers, and watch football. Something we all did before Red Friday hijacked Thanksgiving.

So grab your red armband, keep getting ready for the holidays, and refuse to join in the madness.

Red really is the new black.