Retailers weren’t that happy with the name "Black Friday" at first: it was associated with the Great Depression of the 1930s, signaled by Black Thursday, so they tried to reinvent the image of the Black Friday frenzy.

The ‘black’, it was argued, referred to the ledgers used by retailers. For the majority of the year, shops would be ‘in the red’ (losing money) but Black Friday indicated the moment when most retailers would start making a profit, or going ‘in the black’.