Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, has traditionally marked the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season. Several retailers offer their best savings of the entire year, and offer limited deals and promotions to further entice shoppers.

Historically, people would line up outside of stores in the early morning hours of Black Friday in an effort to score the year's best deals. In recent years, however, Black Friday sales are increasingly launched online long before the official Black Friday date, and sales are then hosted in stores and online.

For the past decade, many retailers have started launching their Black Friday sales well before Friday itself, with some launching deals on Thanksgiving Day, and others even beginning on Wednesday or Monday of Black Friday week. Consequently, Black Friday is no longer the biggest sales day in terms of revenue; Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday have taken the lead.

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