The last day of this work week will be Black Friday 2022, which on Friday, November 25, will bring this event of offers and discounts that takes place in the United States to Thanksgiving Day and is replicated in other countries of the world such as Argentina, Spain , Brazil, England and Ireland, among others.

This tradition takes place on the last Friday of November and is strongly linked to the North American country, where it is one of the most important consumption dates of the year. The event starts at midnight and goes on until sunrise, although in many cases the promotion season stretches into the weekend.

One of the most recurrent images of this initiative is that of the crowded premises, where the frenzy for discounts leads customers to dispute the objects. However, this is becoming less and less due to the growth of electronic commerce.

The symbolic value of Black Friday is great and is given by its place in the calendar: it begins as soon as Thanksgiving Day ends, in which the inhabitants of that country gather with their loved ones for an evening in which they are grateful for the good of the outgoing year with a dinner to which everyone contributes with some element, although the protagonist of the table is the turkey: the traditional dish that goes back to the historical origins of this celebration.

This national holiday arises from the meals with which the first English settlers in the area celebrated the previous harvest before the beginning of winter. These men, called the “Pilgrim Fathers” or “Plymouth Pilgrims,” ​​are remembered in history as a foundational part of American identity. Specifically, as the Encyclopedia Britannica describes, “Americans commonly believe that their Thanksgiving dinner emulates one from 1621 that took place between the ‘Plymouth Pilgrims’ and the Wampanoag aborigines.”

In this way, Black Friday serves to crown this day in which the inhabitants of the United States look for a reason to be grateful, and many find it in the festival of offers.

Black Friday activity also moved to the screens with the growth of e-commerce: according to information from the National Retail Federation (NRF, for its acronym in English), although Black Friday was the day when stores were more full, with 84.2 million physical customers, they did not exceed the 93.2 million virtual purchase orders that occurred during the event.

The success of Black Friday in the United States led several countries to replicate the day of discounts. In addition to this, the aforementioned expansion of electronic commerce led the promotions of the web pages of the main brands to the entire planet, including Argentina, where some local companies imitate the move of their North American colleagues.

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In any case, it is an individual decision of each company since this initiative is not organized by a specific entity. Therefore, those looking for deals should check directly on the official websites of the brands of interest. In addition, others may choose to take advantage of these discounts and opportunities to shop at stores based in other countries, and then bring the product in question into the country through systems such as door-to-door or courier companies.

Those who, during Black Friday, want to buy items abroad through electronic commerce and bring them to the country should know that the AFIP (Federal Administration of Public Revenues) established a series of limits on the products that can be imported for individual consumption.

This applies to books, groceries, clothing, toys, technological products or decorative objects, among others, and requires that:

  • Do not weigh more than 20 kg
  • Have cost more than US$ 3,000.- (three thousand US dollars)
  • They are not for commercial use and yes for personal use

In addition, the entity establishes that a person can only carry out this type of operation five times a year. To bring products in this way, it is necessary to access an authorized means of payment to make purchases abroad, whether it is a credit card or a private system such as PayPal, DineroMail, Western Union or similar.

The client must also have a CUIL (Unique Labor Identification Code) and DNI (National Identity Document), with which they will complete the bureaucratic part of the process. For this purpose, you must also register in the Portal del Correo Argentino.

Once the payment has been made, the AFIP, in charge of Customs, will determine if the shipment can be delivered to the registered address or if it must be picked up at a branch with customs control.

How Black Friday originated

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the origins of this day date back to the 1950s, and the geographical point where Black Friday began is the city of Philadelphia, the most populous city in the state of Pennsylvania, on the east coast of the United States. USA.

In that city, the day after Thanksgiving was chaotic: shoppers from the suburbs descended on the city center to do their holiday shopping, often mingling with spectators attending the highly anticipated Army-U.S. football game. Marine. This caused a traffic disaster in downtown Philly, a mess that repeated itself year after year.

For this reason, the city’s police officers, who worked tirelessly during these days, began to call Black Friday the day after Thanksgiving, which is always celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. Eventually, the merchants adopted the name, although they tried a change: the Big Friday variant was tried, to banish the supposed negativity of the term, but its use was not popularized and, sixty years later, the day that began as the nightmare of the policemen became the dream of customers around the world.

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