The trend started in the United States, where Black Friday is held the day after Thanksgiving. The spending frenzy earned its name as the day that allowed retailers to operate at a profit (“in the black”  as opposed to “in the red”). 

 

Despite its American roots, Black Friday has quickly become Denmark's most important shopping day. Danes smashed the Black Friday spending record last year, racking up 1.98 billion kroner worth of purchases.

 

Everything indicates that Danes will spend even bigger this year. In fact, the Confederation of Danish Industry (Dansk Erhverv) predicts that Friday will be the biggest shopping day in the nation's history with spending expected to exceed two billion kroner. 

 

“We can see that awareness of Black Friday among Danes has increased significantly since last year and many more people expect to take advantage of the special offers that day,” political consultant Martin Barfoed said. 

 

According to a Dansk Erhverv survey, eight out of ten Danes are now familiar with the shopping phenomenon. 

 

Dorte Wimmer, a retail sales and consumer expert at Retail Institute Scandinavia, told broadcaster DR that Black Friday “has come to stay. This will not at all go away.”

 

“Even though we see that there are sales year-round, Black Friday is the trump card that trumps all other red-letter days. It is the king,” she said. 

 

Danes' interest in Black Friday has also quickly caught or surpassed their interest in other commercialized American celebrations. 

 

“Based on how many Danes searches for Black Friday, you can clearly see that there has been a strong increase in interest for the day since 2013. So much so that Black Friday soon will have the same interest as Halloween in Denmark,” Rasmus Sørensen from the online savings portal CupoNation told The Local. 

 

“Black Friday already exceeded the interest for Valentine's Day in Denmark back in 2013,” he added, pointing to his firm's research into Danes' Google search habits. 

Wimmer said there is a good reason that Black Friday has caught on quicker than the others. 

 

“It took us a long time to embrace Valentine's Day and Halloween but Black Friday hits us in the wallet and that's something we like because we're so sensible when we shop and we want to get the good deals,” she told DR.