Last friday was so called “Black Friday”, which is the America’s biggest annual sale events after Thanksgiving holiday. It’s my first time hearing this name – “Black Friday”. The Black Friday means that retailers make enough sales to put themselves “into the black ink”. It starts from midnight of Thursday or Friday early in the morning. People get in line and wait for a few hours to get big discounts. There were many marketing and ads for this biggest events. I can find some good and bad examples from the blog. (http://www.rohitbhargava.com/)

There’s similar marketing events which give special discount on big holiday season in Korea as well. (I’m pretty sure all over the world.) Especially big brand companies give discount in this time. It is effective strategy because the brand-name products have big price elasticity of demand. Just lower the price little bit, the companies can increase profit a lot. But there are some differences. In Korea, usually the sale starts before the Thanksgiving and focus on thanksgiving gift for others. Therefore I can easily see the special gift goods in the mall. In the contrast, in America, sale starts after the thanksgiving and mostly focus on individual products.

This can be explained by culture differences.I don’t know perfectly, but Thanksgiving in the states is having dinner and spend time with family. It is same in Korea but our family gathering is usually bigger. From grandparents to all the cousins. It’a big family time who we couldn’t meet often. Thus we usually give each others small present when we meet. We go to mall to buy gifts for other family members. For these reasons, when I go to mall during the Thanksgiving sale season, there are lots of gift goods. But Black Friday in America is focus on individual consumers. This is why the America’s Black Friday starts after Thanksgiving and focus on individual items but in Korea, sale starts before Thanksgiving and focus on gift for other family members.