Black Friday has been a tradition for many years, millions of shoppers freshly stuffed with thanksgiving turkey rush to malls, stores, and outlets to steal the biggest deals of the year in a mad dash of chaos. However, in the last few years, Black Friday has been declining and getting less sales and people are less frantic. This is due to a very similar event, Cyber Monday.

Cyber Monday, also know as the online shopper’s dream, is when thousands of sites put some of the biggest deals of the year on items that anyone can order. This has taken off pressure to rush to stores in hopes that they can snag one of the few items before the stock runs out.

The last 10 years have seen a revolution of commercial goods with online shopping booming while malls and shopping centers are dying as customers disappear.

This decline of Black Friday has been increased by the ongoing global pandemic as well. Many shops this year didn’t even open on Black Friday or didn’t offer many deals, if any at all, to hopeful shoppers.

The many families have been disappointed and forced to abandon traditions of waking up in the early morning to line up outside of shops to find great deals, now are left at home wondering if they will ever be able to have their Black Friday rituals again.

So during this time of online deals and limited opening of stores the question remains, are people still trying to hold onto Black Friday and go shopping anyways, or is it truly dying off with the rise of online shopping and chaos during quarantine?

“Yes I absolutely do go Black Friday shopping but I don’t spend my whole day in a store, that would be absolute torture, discounts or not. I think Black Friday is 90% safe, no problems, because everyone’s hiding at home so the crowds were less than normal.” – Marshal Jacobsen, a senior at Davis

Black Friday may not be dead after all, as a few loyal supporters still showed up this year to find all the greatest deals that the stores had to offer this year. It seems that there might always be those who prefer the old ways of in person shopping and scrambling for deals.

However, some people are just shopping less as a whole, with a global pandemic many families have less spare money then ever and may have to cut back on holiday shopping and Christmas gift giving. This could explain the reduced turnout and shorter lines for Black Friday this year.

Even people who do have money often spend much more on the sale than they would if there no sales at all. Holiday shopping has been ingrained into the American culture so much that it is standard to spend lots of money on presents and deals in the holiday season.

“Holidays shred my wallet… they are definitely not a saving grace for my bank account” -Jacobsen

So while Black Friday may have not been completely killed it still is greatly reduced because of the pandemic combined with more people preferring just to order what they want online and wait for packages to arrive in the mail.

As time continues it will be interesting to see if Black Friday and Cyber Monday keep affecting each other or if both stabilize their sales in the future and both events stick around to cater to both the people who still love the tradition and fun of in person shopping and those who love getting packages and ordering whatever they want online the week after.