Black Friday is upon us, time to get your wallets out!

The holiday season for the United States does not end at Thanksgiving. "Black Friday"is celebrated on the day following the colourful, feast-centred occasion.

If you still have the energy from eating all that Thanksgiving dinner, you must be equally excited to now empty your wallets as "Black Friday"unleashes the season's sales.

It all startedin 1939, when the retailers feared they would go bankrupt if Thanksgiving was to be celebrated on the last day of November, not giving people enough time to shop for Christmas and eventually leading to major losses.

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This then ledto the nations biggest retailers to persuade President Franklin D. Roosevelt to celebrate Thanksgivingone week beforethe last day of November, leading to the concrete pre-eminence of the post-Thanksgiving sales, known as "Black Friday".

Franklin D. Roosevelt (Others)

People would usually call in sick from work on Thanksgiving Dayto celebrate the four-day weekend, eventually marking it as a national holiday.

The day became a ritual anda family tradition also a big day fora shopping spree for everyone and big profits for the retailers. People would camp on the streets the night before just to bombard in the shops as soon as itopened.

Representative Photo (Reuters)

Being one of the busiest, it is one of the most important days for the economy as 30% annual sales occur between Black Friday and Christmas - nearly 40% discount for some retailers selling TVs, tablets, appliances, and jewellery. For some, it can make or break their fourth-quarter profits.

However, the greatest "Black Friday"sales are not actually on the day itself but weeks before leading up to it. Retailers like Amazon, Target, Walmart, Best Buy and many others slash prices to gain market share. The current average merchandise discount is 37.3%, according to Reuters.

Representative Photo (Reuters)

The competition each year gets fierce as online shopping becomes more and more popular in the US, requiring the sellers to come up with new ways to attract customers.

Wonder why the dip in "Black Friday"rush? It is because everything is now online!

Sales and traffic at US brick-and-mortar stores on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday have been declininig since 2015, as stores offered discounts well beyond the weekend and more customers shopped online.

Internet sales rose in the double digits on both days as around 108.5 million Americansshopped online over the long weekend, well above the 99.1 million who hit stores, in 2016. Therefore, the relentless race to hit the malls has stalled over the years.

According to Adobe, online shopping surpassed the $5 billion mark for Thanksgiving and Black Friday, in 2016, and rose to 17.3% to $7.23 billion on just ThanksgivingDay.

The total holiday season sales reached to $655.8 billion in 2016, and is expected to rise to $967.13 billion this year, according to The Balance.

Representative Photo (Reuters)

So, "Black Friday"is upon us, get going and purchase that TV, phone ora watch which you have been trying to put off for so long.