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Black Friday 2005 Recap

Black Friday in 2005 marked an important milestone in the history of retail sales in the United States. Falling on November 25 that year, it retained its position as the busiest shopping day of the year, a tradition that has long been maintained due to the deep discounts offered by retailers the day after Thanksgiving.

As early as 2005, Black Friday had begun to signify not just a day of sales, but a broader period of discounting and shopping frenzy, a trend that would only intensify in the years to come. Shoppers lined up outside brick-and-mortar stores early in the morning, some even camping overnight, to score the best deals on everything from electronics and appliances to clothing and toys.

The year 2005 is particularly significant because it was during this period that online shopping began to really take hold. E-commerce was gaining ground with consumers, and retailers were responding by offering more of their Black Friday deals online. Amazon and other online retailers began promoting their Black Friday deals, sparking the beginning of what would later become known as Cyber Monday, a day dedicated to online shopping deals following the Thanksgiving weekend.

However, brick-and-mortar stores still held the upper hand in 2005. The dominant retail story of the day was still about the in-store experiences, the stampedes at the early morning store openings, and the lengths to which people were willing to go to secure the best deals. It was around this time that retailers began opening their doors earlier than usual, setting the stage for the midnight openings that would become more common in subsequent years.

Black Friday 2005, therefore, stood at an interesting crossroads. It bore witness to the traditional retail shopping frenzy, but also gave early hints of the burgeoning influence of online shopping, predicting the seismic shifts in retail that were yet to come.