As the clock slowly ticks, the screams of fury, the fights and the rage build inside everyone waiting for the start of it all. Onlookers watch in terror as the scene starts to unfold, and the race to the end begins. 

Every year fights and stampedes occur in shops all over the country on the holiday known as Black Friday. Last year Black Friday fights broke out all over the country and some were posted causing them to go viral on Youtube and Twitter. 

Because of this Black Friday should be eliminated and shoppers should shop from the comfort of their own home via online shopping.

According to History.com Black Friday originally started in the 1950s in Philadelphia. The police used the term Black Friday to describe the chaos that ensued the day after Thanksgiving when shoppers and tourists flocked to the city for the big Army-Navy football game.

Now, Black Friday is a way for people around the country to buy discounted items  on the Friday after Thanksgiving in order to get a head start on their holiday shopping.

Stampedes and fist fights are also a major issue in Black Friday.  It was common  for people to flood into the stores the minute they opened causing some to be trampled and injured. 

According to blackfridaydeathcount.com there have been twelve deaths and 117 injuries due to fights and stampedes during Black Friday since 2006. 

Over the years the holiday has transformed in more ways than just riots erupting in the middle of stores. With the help of modern technology,  more people are starting to shop online instead of in person. According to blackfriday.com 142.2 million people shopped online last year.

The use of technology has helped people shop by making more items accessible to buy. With just a click of a button, an empty online cart becomes a full one, and soon the item is shipped to the front door. 

According to commercialappeal.com, last year FEDEX shipped out 94.6 percent of gifts and UPS shipped out 96.6 percent.

Due to the rise of online shopping, a new ‘holiday’ was formed back in 2005 called Cyber Monday. The holiday was created after the online branch of the National Retail Federation discovered that the amount of web purchases spiked the Monday after Thanksgiving.

This year shopping online may not only save shoppers from getting caught in fights but also staying safe from COVID.

Due to the pandemic, some stores have decided to have Black Friday sales for the whole month of November. Even though that may sound ideal for shoppers, the flood of emails that are sent out are not. Some shoppers receive up to 35 emails a day from multiple stores.

Another perk of online shopping is that some stores give shoppers the ability to place a hold on items to make sure shoppers actually want to purchase the items.

For example, Target allows customers to put clothes and other items into your shopping cart and put them on hold until clicking ‘check out’.

Even with the abundance of available technology, some shoppers have their own reasons for shopping in brick and mortar stores for Black Friday such as finding the correct clothing size. When shopping online, the clothing size may vary depending on the store, where a medium could fit like a small.

However, Amazon allows free returns and at certain stores they offer the option to drop the clothes off at the store and exchange them for the proper size.

There are a few downsides to online shopping, though.  

According to NBC news, this year there has been a lot of backup at multiple postal sites where packages are not being delivered on time due to the amount of  people ordering online.

It is recommended by the UPS and FEDEX that customers order their gifts by Dec. 15 to assure that they will arrive on time for the holiday season.